1920s Gretsch-made Resonator Banjo-Mandolin

My friend Gus brought this bandmate's instrument in for service a few weeks ago as she needed some more firepower for the music they're playing. It's an old Gretsch-made instrument, judging by features, hardware, and construction (that volute on the back of the headstock is a give-away) and dates to the late '20s or very early '30s. A lot of Gretsch product at the time wore other brand names (like Concertone) so it's not unusual to find one with no markings.

Work inlcuded a fret level/dress, hidden bolt-reinforcement for the neck joint attachment, some cleaning, a new head, new (adjustable-style) bridge, and setup work. It's now playing on-spec and sounds great -- if you play these with chord-chops while picking over the fretboard, you get a bit of that bluegrass mandolin chop sound -- but if you pick it nearer the bridge it will get the bright, snappy, piercing banjo thing going on.

It's fun to "back off" the playing to a less-aggressive style and let the natural volume of these do the work for you. You can pull-off some pretty dexterous stuff that you otherwise can't do on a "normal" mandolin with any volume because of that.

This one had a "shaped wooden rim" design and, fortunately, does not have a proper tonering so it's not too screechy-sounding as some of these can be. I added muting foam beneath the top and under the tailpiece, too, to cut-down on random overtones.