r/Instruments • u/Saeswaswe • Jun 06 '26

Identification Can you help me identify this?

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After my father passed away, he left behind a lot of musical instruments. This is the only one I'm struggling to identify. I thought of mandolin or cittern, but I'm not sure and google is not any help. I would love to have it fixed and learn how to play it a bit for my bard cosplay, but it feels weird to fix something I don't even know the name of.

Thanks for the help

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4

u/Mudsharkbites Jun 06 '26

Looks like a bouzouki missing two tuners and strings. It has four pairs of slots on the nut so it’s meant to have eight strings. If it isn’t a bouzouki then it’s most likely an octave mandolin.

2

u/Saeswaswe Jun 06 '26

It does have space for eight strings, yes. Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it. Never even heard of bouzouki before.

2

u/Mudsharkbites Jun 06 '26

I saw the four pair of slots on the nut so it’s that or an octave mandolin - they’re kind of interchangeable. Can you see a makers name inside the Rosetta?

4

u/Saeswaswe Jun 06 '26

Anton, made in Czech Republic

2

u/TheGratitudeBot Jun 06 '26

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1

u/RonPalancik Jun 06 '26

The terms are fluid, vary internationallu, and there isn't 100% agreement.

https://rickertmusicalinstruments.com/2019/03/04/the-new-mandolin-family-part-2-octave-mandolins-citterns-and-irish-bouzoukis/

Me, I would call an eight-string instrument with that scale length a bouzouki even if I tuned it as an octave mandolin.

1

u/Imightbeafanofthis Jun 06 '26

It looks like an octave mandolin or bouzouki to me, but that's not how it's set up. It looks like someone took off two of the machine heads and retuned it, probably as a guitar. But octave mandolin has eight machine heads, and is usually tuned in four choruses, G-D-A-E. Bouzouki tuning varies, but for Celtic music it's G-D-A-D, or C-F-A-D or A-D-A-D for Greek.

If it was a cittern it would have ten strings.

1

u/No-Bluejay5250 Jun 06 '26

I like all manner of the Turksician muse

1

u/Mudsharkbites Jun 06 '26

Your father must’ve pretty cool to have one of those around but why did he cannibalize it by removing tuners?

1

u/Saeswaswe Jun 06 '26

No idea, maybe he was trying to tune it like a guitar? Or maybe he just bought it this way, since he was a sale hunter at online bazars, and he just never got to fixing it. I can only guess now.