1911 Gibson K2 black face Mandocello (Mandolin family) 

This 1911 Gibson K2 Mandocello saw a hard life, but it has been lovingly resurrected. When I got it with the goal to repair and resell, the neck was split from the headstock 2/3 of the way to the body. The instrument was filthy, and it was set up as a guitar. The back had an expansion crack, the lower block was loose, and the back was loose. The binding on the ebony fretboard was cracking into pieces, some of the inlay in the headstock was gone. Ugh.

Now for the good. All of the above problems have been carefully remedied.

Of necessity, it has some new parts. What’s new? The modern tailpiece and cover are Gibson style, but the cover lacks the “The Gibson” inscription. The original spliced piece of the side between the tailpiece and the lower block has been replaced with ebony. The wood around the block was chewed up due to old water damage, so there are two tiny patches in the side at the bottom of the block. The old and now stable expansion crack in the back has been filled and cleated. Much of the kerfed bracing between back and sides has been replaced. All of the fretboard binding has been replaced with cream plastic StewMac binding. It’s a pretty good job, but not perfect. The color is close to the original celluloid binding, but not exact. I kept as much of the original body binding as possible, some was patched with binding from the fingerboard, and some new StewMac binding was used.

The headstock inlay was missing a few pieces of pearl, so I redid the missing pearl. It’s hard but not impossible to tell the difference from the original. One piece of the “The Gibson” lettering (part of the “I” and the “b” has a noticeably different iridescent angle compared to the original. Because it was in such bad shape, the entire headstock was refinished –the top and back painted the original black, and the sides and end stained very similarly to the original with a light finish over them.

The neck is quite stable and straight; there is a hard to see shim under part of the fingerboard. The back of the 3-piece neck was so rough that I made the call to strip most of it to look like a violin neck, then lightly finished with linseed oil. One could refinish over the linseed oil in order to have it look more like the original, but the unstained maple looks nice. The bridge saddle was replaced with new ebony - I cut 3 at slightly different heights, so you can choose how high you want the bridge to suit your taste and/or for climate changes. It has new D’Addario strings – sorry I don’t have the originals.

The back and side body finish received touchup staining in a few of the larger scratches. The black top paint was left as is except for polishing. There are numerous scratches from old abuse of the body - fairly typical for this vintage  - the scratches are hard to see in most picture, and hard to see from 3-5 feet away. The original screw holes in the block for the tailpiece were filled with glued dowels and new holes drilled, but this repair does not show - the original screw holes in the sides are used for the tailpiece. The endpin has a small chip in it.

What’s original (as best I can tell)? The ebony bridge base has been carefully fitted to the top. The internal top brace was never loose and is in good shape, and the top has maintained the correct arching – no collapse. Two small side braces received minor repairs. The top has no cracks nor sinkage. The neck joint is good. The ebony fretboard is in good shape for 111 years old with minor wear in lower frets. The narrow frets appear to be original. The lower frets have some grooving, but because it is not buzzing yet, frets were not dressed. The action is not real low, but it’s not high either. With the current saddle, and there are no buzzes as is.

The beautiful Handel tuners cleaned up nicely and work  - the tuners require some strength, but that’s due to the huge fat strings. The tuner buttons could crack tomorrow, but amazingly they don’t show signs of brittleness. The top shows a lot of use, but is rather attractive. In one location 2 inches long, the small space between the original binding and the back was filled in with glue and wood shavings and stained – pulling the binding back to the body would have broken the binding. All original binding has been cleaned up, but it still looks old.

It has no pickguard. The serial number is 12375, which should mean that it’s a 1911 model. I really like this thing, but I’m never going to be a ‘cello player.

 How does it sound? I’ve owned and played lot of old Gibson mandolins. I haven’t heard many mandocellos, but it has the pretty classic oval-hole ‘cello sound – very round, woody tone. I would guess that the volume is average for this vintage; it projects pretty well. It’s clearly not a museum piece, but it should be a reliable and attractive player. There is no case. The instrument will be very carefully packed for shipping.

Payment by PayPal. I want the buyer to know exactly what he or she is getting and be happy with it. I will accept returns for any reason for 7 days after receipt – buyer pays return shipping. If it develops any structural problems within a month, get in touch and we’ll work something out to your satisfaction. FREE SHIPPING to continental US within 2-5 days of receipt of funds. No overseas shipping.