1950s Tauscher & Co ("Taco" Brand) German Mandola (Octave Mando Setup)

This is a cool old German mandola, probably made in the '50s, and featuring a bit of a lute-like back and cool, inlaid, folk-style pickguard. The headstock brand is worn but suggests it bears the Taco label which is short for Tauscher & Co. out of East Germany at the time. The owner of the instrument, per our guidance for his needs, had us set it up as a short-scale octave mandolin for him and it sounds and plays like a champ now that the work is done.

Tim did a lot of hard work on it -- repairing a number of back seam woes, cleating and filling a top crack, leveling/dressing the frets, adding side dots, fitting replacement tuners (it had none when it came in), fitting the bridge to suit the setup, and doing final adjustments.

While it would sound a little more lively in standard CGDA tuning, the low GDAE octave mandolin tuning still sounds nice and is easier to map-out in the brain if you're already playing mandolin or fiddle.