1930s Strad-O-Lin A-Style Archtop Mandolin

My first good "player's" mandolin was this same model Strad-O-Lin, albeit a lot more beat-up. It was positively ugly. At the time I was shocked at how good it sounded, however, and used it for a couple years as my jam-group main squeeze. Eventually I moved-on to fancier boxes, but never forgot about just how good these '30s Strads can be. Now that I'm back down to one mandolin, this customer's instrument certainly tempted me to do a few quick searches on the web to see what Strads were up for grabs.

Compared to the slightly-later f-hole Strads, these early round-hole Strads have a very bluegrassy tone to them (loud, punchy, and midsy) but favor more of the lower-mids mwah of Gibson oval-holes from the same time. It's a nice, round sound that cuts well-enough in a band setting.

Work on this was just a setup and compensation of the bridge. It has a solid spruce top over maple back and sides. The "purfling" is simply a line cut into the top that's been filled with color. I always liked that simple-but-effective styling on these guys. It's also nice to see an original pickguard still intact. The instrument is all-original except for an extra couple pearl dots at the 12th fret in the board -- and side dots I added.

Strad-O-Lins were made by United in New Jersey through the early '60s, as far as I know. The best ones are from the '30s and '40s.