2000s Trinity College Octave Mandolin

Until Gold Tone came along with their more-recent line of Celtophile instruments, Trinity College was the main purveyor of mid-grade/nicer-quality import octave mandolins, mandolas, and bouzoukis. I'm not sure when this one is from, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was made anytime during the past 10-15 years. It's a solid instrument that, while a little overbuilt, still handles and sounds very good.

In an odd twist, a lot of modern makes choose to x-brace these instruments which gives the top a lot more durability but mellows them in the treble range and removes a bit of punch and cut. The sweetness is nice, however, if you're primarily playing a lot of chords and modal sliding-chord-bits or you're playing melody on your lonesome or with one or two others. The tonal flavor of this means that it would gel with a crowd of guitars if you were trying to play lead in a jam, however.

This one came in via consignment and needed just a little bit of work to get it going.

Work included: a fret level/dress, minor shim-up of the bridge foot, a cleat and seal job of a long-unattended dryness crack on the top near the center seam, restring, general cleaning, and a setup. It plays on-the-dot with 3/32" G and 1/16" DAE at the 12th fret, strung with gauges 42w/42w, 32w/32w, 16/16, 12/12. I used plain "A" strings even though I would've liked to use wound 18s because the bridge is factory-compensated for plains. The truss rod works as it should and the neck is straight.

Scale length: 20 1/8"
Nut width: 1 1/4"
String spacing at nut: 1"
String spacing at bridge: 1 3/4"

Lower bout: 13 1/4"

Side depth: 2 7/8"

Body length: 16"

Top wood: solid spruce

Back/sides wood: maple
Neck wood: maple(?)

Fretboard: rosewood (black-stained)

Neck shape: flat board with slim-medium C-shape

Bridge: rosewood/bone

Nut: original plastic

Weight: 3 lb 9 oz

Condition notes: repaired/sealed hairline crack to top (a little unsightly but hidden under the string path), slightly raised center-seam/backstrip on back, but no structural worry. Otherwise, in good order save minor use-wear throughout. The top also deflects down just a hair where the bridge sits, but that's bog-standard as far as these go.

It comes with: a hard case.

I couldn't really get a photo of the backstrip well-enough to illustrate it, but basically the backstrip inlay is made from 4-5 layers of thin wood and it's dried-out on the center plys and so it looks like there's a hairline crack running down it. In reality, there's interior cleating/strapping running the whole length so it's tidy and a non-issue.