c.1920 Stella Bowlback Mandolin

This mandolin had been hanging on my wall on my "to do list" for a good long while now. It came to me with broken original braces, a sunk top, and seam separations and missing purfling on the top as well as the usual bowl separations. Fortunately enough, the neck is straight, the heel good, the original bone nut was there, and the frets had room to be dressed. The tuners were also completely dead (sad, because they were bone buttoned ones, but all the gears were stripped like nuts). At any rate, all those "to dos" have been rectified and I've cut a new bone bridge for it. Action is nice and low and easy, and the sound is gloriously sustained and ringing. It has that intense long bell-like ring that a Portuguese guitar has. Very interesting!

This was made by Oscar Schmidt out of New Jersey probably c.1910-1920 or so. It has a rosewood and mahogany bowl with a mahogany neck and good spruce top. Binding is celluloid, the fretboard is rosewood (I think, can't remember from up here in the studio!), and the frets are nickel-silver. Notice, also, the cool as hell decals on the headstock and pickguard! Gotta love it.

Nice "crown" headstock. Bone nut.

Fretboard. MOP dots.


Top detail.


Pickguard detail: the muse to the player? Bone bridge.

Soundhole detail: the binding for the soundhole is missing but I've touched it up a little bit to "look the part."

Label.

Tailpiece. At this point, polishing up really won't do much!

Back.

New tuners. I know, silly Pings, but at the price of a set of Grovers... that'd be no go for this mando.

Bowl detail.


Here you can see the mahogany banding over the rosewood ribs.

Action under 1/8" all the way up. Sweet player.

Here you can see how I've flattened the top back out (as much as I could). This thing used to look like a boomerang. I'm serious. That's why I wasn't too excited about starting work on it. Tehe.