Mandola

Gibson H-4 model mandola with a light to dark red sunburst finish, serial number 49642. The H-4 mandola has a two-point body (points on the upper and lower right corners) and a scroll on the upper left corner, like the F model mandolins. The mandola has a carved, arched top and back, a design patented by Orville Gibson in 1898. Five businessmen bought the name and patent from Orville Gibson in 1902 and started The Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co., Ltd. The H-4 model was introduced in 1910 and discontinued in 1940. The oval soundhole has decorative binding of a ring of inlaid wood and a second ring of ivoroid. The binding around the top and back of the instrument, the fingerboard, and the headstock is also ivoroid. Mahogany is used for the neck, and the fingerboard is of ebony and extends over the soundhole. There are twenty-one nickel-silver frets with mother-of-pearl position dots on the fingerboard and upper edge of the neck. The floating bridge is a modern replacement (the original bridge survives in the case). The mandola has the standard string disposition of eight steel strings in four courses, tuned in unison pairs to the pitches of a viola: C, G, D, A. The nickel-silver tailpiece is engraved "The Gibson." The distinctive headstock echoes the scroll shape from the body has an inlaid "flower pot" design that was commonly used on high-end Gibson instruments, as well as inlay that reads "The Gibson." The Handel machine four-on-a-plate tuners are inlaid with a flower motif. The instrument has a raised pickguard mounted on metal brackets.