Nobody calls it a bouzouki-mandolin except for Gold Tone. It’s a guitar shaped Irish Bouzouki. These have a shorter scale than the more familiar Greek Bouzouki

It’s not a mandola. That’s a 15” scale instrument tuned like a viola. Very popular in mandolin orchestras 120 years ago, very few made today. My Gibson H-2 was made in 1911 and my Martin AA-K in 1927. Eastman still makes them and I sell one of these every three years or so.
Trinity College Mandola

Full disclosure: I’m an authorized dealer for Saga (Trinity College), The Music Link/AXL (Recording King & Loar) and Gold Tone.

The most popular folk variant is the octave mandolin. I have been looking for the owner of one identical to this Flatiron Octave Mandolin that used to belong to Jethro Burns—I helped him pick it out when he lived nearby. I sold it and most of my other mandolins to a local store after my stroke but couldn’t find the paperwork verifying provenance signed by his brother-in-law Chet Atkins (Jethro and Chet married twin sisters). My wife found the letter in a box a couple years ago and I’d like to reunite it with the mandolin. I recorded one of the Beethoven Sonatinas on it around 1999—other three were played on regular mandolins.

I still own my 1916 Gibson A-1 and 1900 Washburn and hope to pass them on to a grand child if I ever have any. I have some heirloom banjos as well.


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