c.1915 Unmarked Flatback Mandolin

While unmarked, this looks a heck of a lot like an Oscar Schmidt product to me -- especially with the light-colored rosewood fretboard (typical on a lot of teens/20s OS products), body style & shape as well as bracing. The pickguard, inlaid into the top, is also very OS. What isn't, however, is the headstock shape (very Regal or Lyon & Healy) and the fact that the top kerfing isn't square shaped, but triangular.

This mando sports a solid spruce top and birch back and sides, painted to look like rosewood. It has a bound top and soundhole with some nice red/yellow/black purfling. The only unoriginal part is the bridge, which is a parts-bin rosewood type that I've fit to this mando.

My work included a fret dress, setup, tuner lube, brace reglue, seam reglues on the back, and also a hairline glue on the top (from the pickguard to the lower bout) which is now all sturdy and ready to go.

This mando plays nice and easy and has a sweet, warm, and very loud sound. These 13-ish inch scales are very quick to play.

It's nice that the cloud tailpiece cover remains.

Here you can see that reglued crack a little better.

These tuners date the mando probably to the teens.

Neck set was good to go.

Cute faux-rosewood back and sides with a nice little inlaid backstrip.

For a good "player's mando" that certainly can hold its own in a folk jam, look no further than these teens and twenties beauts. I've liked every one I've worked on. They're not bluegrassy but they sure are sweet.