Bandolon = Plus-Size Mandola Variant

This freshly set up instrument is probably about a century old. Private labeled for Wagner and Levien of Mexico City, it may one of the many mandolin-family instruments made for them by Lyon & Healy of Chicago.

It has exceptional build details, like the grooved back of the neck, to help anchor your thumb for chording, and quick-release tuning pegs with a tension release feature for easy string changes, a chamfered end on the fingerboard, and a contrasting dark wood inlay at the tailblock.

You can see a bandolon played by maestro Gabriel Saucedo Villalobos on YouTube. ()

The voice is exactly what you would expect from a bright, highly reflective tonewood built into a flat-backed mandolin-style instrument in between a mandola and an octave mandolin in size, but with more body depth. Lots of jangle and chime, and many possible tuning options. I’ve enjoyed playing it like a guitar, in EADGBE format but with pitch raised to G/C/F/A/D/G. (But in the process I figured out that my hands, which can palm a basketball, are overized for bandolon chording, just as they are for mandolin.)

Strings are arranged in six courses, three strings each. Tuners are eighteen-on-a-plate. Back and sides appear to be maple with slight traces of figure and I am guessing the top to be cedar. Top and back show cleat-repaired cracks, all quite stable.

Overall length is 33 ¾ inches. Body length is 15 ¼ inches, body width is 13 inches, and body depth is 4 5/8 inches at neck block, 5 1/8 inches at tailblock. Nut width is 1 7/8 inches, and scale length is 17 7/8 inches.

No case, but it will be very carefully packed and fully insured. CONUS shipping $38.