1971 Harmony H331 "Stella" Flatback Mandolin

Oh, the humble all-birch Harmony flatback mandolin -- it comes in many names, many colors, and has been produced in essentially the same style since the mid-1930s. This one's way late in the game at 1971 and it has the "Stella" mark at the headstock. The iced-tea sunburst finish is pretty neat, though, and the instrument has no cracks and very little abuse. Usually these are nicked-up and manhandled by successive generations of students.

This came via a consignor and I'm going to see about trading with him to bring it into part of a collection of instruments I'm getting ready to use for an in-shop local "instrument library." It needed the usual work that these need -- a bolt through the neck to keep it steady in its joint, a fret level/dress, some recutting/compensation to the bridge, side dots, and a good setup. It's received all that and is playing on-the-dot at 1/16" at the 12th fret and I have it strung with 32w-9 GHS A240 mandolin strings to keep the tension light and easy on whoever might play this next.

Specs are "as-normal" for a Harmony, too, with a 13" scale, 9 1/2" body width, 2 5/8" depth, and 1 3/16" nut width. The neck has a U/D hybrid shape to its rear.

Materials on this include solid birch top, back, and sides, a poplar neck, and stained-maple fretboard and bridge. It's ladder-braced.

The nut is plastic and the frets are brass.

The bridge wasn't originally screwed-down to the top and it wasn't compensated, either. I've done both and then retouched the "ebonization" with some black India ink.

There's a bit of muting leather under the tailpiece cover to damp the string afterlength.

It's hard to see in the photo but there's a small patched hole in the rear of the heel where I predrilled to install a screw/bolt via the soundhole. The necks on these are always loose and it's too expensive a job to do a proper neck reset on these.

There's the 1971 date stamp.