including pick scratches in the upper bass bout of the face, and other typical scratches, scuffs, dings, hand wear on the back of the neck, infinitely small chips on the finished surfaces. This is to be expected since it is, after all, 88 years old. It has its original hard shell case but the center latch is non-functional since it’s missing the top section (somebody apparently once pried it apart with their Glock ET17070 entrenching tool), and also comes with 3 ancient books of mandolin instruction.
The Style A-2 is known for having all of the features of the Style A-1 plus crème celluloid back binding to match the top binding. In addition it has fingerboard binding on three sides of its jet black ebony fingerboard that hosts 6 white mother of pearl dotmarkers. The headstock is unbound, black overlain, and in this instance inlaid with “The Gibson” in white pearl script letters, at an angle, near the tip end of the center detent. There is, of course, a bell-shaped black plastic truss rod cover held in place by two roundhead screws above the bone nut. The bridge is the original ebony two-piece adjustable with the “Patented Jan 18 – 21” imprint on the foot; the pickguard is the original tortoise shell color celluloid with the “Pat. Mar. 30, ‘09” stamp and the adjustable pickguard clamp has the “Pat. July 4, 1911” legend. Its tailpiece cover is the original “The Gibson” with floral pattern and the tuners are original, four-on-a-plate with grained ivoroid round buttons.
This is, on the whole, a complete and original example of a Lloyd Loar tenure Style A-2, the fourth model up in a line of six teardrop styles. In the mythology, Mr. Loar contributed to the development of the adjustable truss rod which led to a slimmer more comfortable neck shape, the adjustable bridge which made it possible for a musician to regulate his or her own playing action, changed the angle of the neck to the body, applied the elevated (cantilevered) fingerboard end (which feature this doesn’t have), the f-hole arched top instrument (nor that, this is an oval hole), graduated the top to conform to violin standards, re-wrote the rules for “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” so that no actual donkeys were required, and, along with Alexander Cartwright, co-invented baseball (which is why wooden baseball bats have truss rods). It is felt that Mr. Loar was a bona fide genius; at the very least he was a college professor, so that counts. This model comes with the twin concentric 5-part black and crème oval soundhole rosette, plus the soundhole itself is bound in crème ivoroid. The top grain is parallel – a beautiful example of North American spruce; the back and sides are swirly maple and the back of the neck is birch or mahogany. As you know, the snakehead mandolin is, in our opinion and as held by many others, the best of the west, the host with the most, the joker with the diamond choker of oval hole, of the teardrop-shaped mandolins. This is a superb sounding (and possibly investment level) mandolin you can play in the supermarket or the subway platform, up on the gazebo in your day coat and straw hat on Sundays after church or, laughing heartily, all the way to the bank.