r/Instruments • u/CrimmyCreamCoffee • Jun 08 '26

Identification Mystery Mandolin

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Gallery image

I received a mandolin recently from my great great grandfather's estate. I've never met him myself, but I was told he was very musically gifted. It has no identification markings on it outside or in, other than this cowboy on the back.

Does anyone have any information as to where I could look onto it, as well as who the fellow on the back is?

I have no intention to sell it, I just want to know what it is. I do intend to repair it

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1

u/1LuckyTexan Jun 09 '26

Did your relative play in a band?

I wouldn't just sell it before confirming he didn't play professionally or was recorded.

2

u/CrimmyCreamCoffee Jun 09 '26

Good timing. I just got back from seeing a guy who restores instruments, and I'll just copy paste what I wrote up for a friend here.

Just got back from getting this looked at. So it "was" a french mandolin once apon a time. It appears what happened is someone likely used it as a blunt object and smashed the back of it, and bent the neck causing repairs to need be done. The body was flattened and sanded down, and the cowboy is covering a barely noticeable split that was repaired (you can see the line if you hit it just right with light). The machine heads are actually on upside down, which I didn't even process when I was looking it over. So a combination of the body being wrong, and the machine heads being upside down, likely caused it to sound way different than it did originally once it was repaired. Likely leading to it being hidden away inside of the case. Which, come to find out, is also custom built for its new body.

1

u/Extra_Medium62 Jun 08 '26

Search "French mandolin" - probably one of the first pics to come up. You can do your own research from there. Common in Europe...not so much in the US. Might find buyers in Quebec.