1910s Gibson K-2 Carved-Top Mandocello

Here we have yet another Mike Brown instrument -- and this one's a well-traveled instrument he uses at gigs frequently. Here he is playing down at The Wild Fern with it:

For a Gibson mandocello, it's in disgustingly-good shape. There are no cracks, weird seams, bad braces, sinking top problems, what-have you...! It was playing a bit like a dog for him (I feel so bad for his fingers) and had a Baggs M1 pickup in the soundhole which, considering the polepieces being "offset" from the string paths, wasn't really the best option.

After I leveled/dressed the frets, fit lefty side dots, and made a new lefty bridge saddle, we fit a Danelectro-style lipstick pickup and custom mount for it and wired that to an old endpin jack and grounded it to the tailpiece. The mount sort-of works like other soundhole pickup mounts and tensions-up with some plates mounted behind it via two screws -- so no "screw-mounting" to the top.

Surprise! The bar magnet of the lipstick sounded good even with the phosphor bronze-wrapped strings. We win.

Suffice to say, I adore old Gibson K-shaped mandocellos and this black-finished one is a true sweetheart. It has a woody, clunky, chunky tone and he keeps it in the same CGCG open C modal tuning that I would use on such a device myself. Bonus points, Mike!

Also note the Handel tuners...