Weber no longer makes the Beartooth series, which was an extremely elegant and beautifully appointed model. We miss the Beartooth, but probably not as much as the bear does. Perhaps they feel that it was too close in specification to the Yellowstone, which, if you wanted one of those named models today in an octave it would have a manufacturer’s price of $5499. (This one is around half of that number). We display before you a gorgeous carved top and back, f-hole, all-solid-wood hand-crafted octave mandolin in excellent condition showing the lightest signs of playing time, taking the form of extremely small dings – but there’s only a few of ‘em. An aftermarket pickup was added to the instrument, which provides considerable versatility to the musician who plays out. (The case greatly resembles a resonator 5-string banjo case, but it fits perfectly and it is original).
This is a richly sunburst glossy finished teardrop-shaped octave (tuned one octave below regular mandolin, but still in G D A E which in a land down under might be pronounced “g’day.”) having a 22” scale, a 12 1/4” body width, a close and parallel grained spruce carved top, a fingerboard width of 1 7/16th at the nut, a Brekke adjustable (using an Allen Wrench) art deco-design ebony bridge, with a standard slide-on tailpiece cover which Weber utilized before they went to the “raised W” version. It has the Weber headstock logo in Victorian stylized pearl letters, and below that a mother of pearl Celtic Knot. Tuners are pearloid button with gold plated metal parts; the crème bound ebony fingerboard is inlaid with 8 mother of pearl small diamonds in 7 fret positions. The sides are bordered in crème and there is an additional crème-black purfling line around both the top and the back. It plays extremely easily, having a low comfortable action, a fast, speedy carved maple neck, and its sound is thunder over the Rocky Mountains (which nothing at all like thunder over the Smooth Mountains). One might expect this to be a lot more money, especially since this was the “Prototype” – a pre-serial number instrument and is therefore more collectible, but in fact we are pricing it for fast sale and that’s why it’s . . . . .