The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #121482   Message #2653789
Posted By: Richard Bridge
11-Jun-09 - 04:31 AM
Thread Name: Mandolin maker: label with no name?
Subject: RE: Mandolin maker: label with no name?
Even if the machine heads are the miniature Gotoh Shaller-styles the headstock has got to be six inches long and the scale length appears to be about three times that. On the other hand those string covers are prety standard at 2.5 inches and it appears to fit into the scale length 6 times which would be a mandolin scale length. I suspect that perspective is playing tricks, as it would unless the photo were taken from a point equidistant between the ends of the instrument (and plainly it wasn't).

So it's too short to be a mandola, I think.

It's plainly a modern instrument.

Unless the neck is bent (rare on mandolins) or the frets played out of existence, the action will be capable of being Rodgersed.

The fact that there are no-half-frets on the flying fingerboard points to a less expensive instrument.

I have half a feeling I've seen that logo before (ie as you desribed and as far as I can determine from the pix). Maybe the Ashbury range from Hobgoblin, or one of the ebay sellers who sells specifically "celtic mandolins" - but the machine heads look too good to be either (unless they are cheap chinese copies, I've seen cheap chinese Grover copies that were very cheap and very nasty - but gold and pretty).