Like Gibson’s carved-top mandolins, their carved-top mandocellos produced a louder, more robust sound than the Italian-style instruments with their bent tops and bowl-shaped backs. The first catalog featured two models – the K-1 and the fancier K-2 – both with the pear-shaped, oval-hole body of its A-style mandolins. With aggressive marketing, Gibson would quickly dominate that market.Īs previous makers had done, Gibson made its mandocellos in the image of its mandolins. The Gibson company, however, which was formed in October, 1902, featured mandolas and mandocellos in its very first catalog, so the market obviously existed. Orville Gibson began revolutionizing mandolin construction in the 1890s with his concept of the carved, arched top, but he is not known to have made any mandolas or mandocellos. However, the mandolin quartet, with instruments equivalent to the two violins, viola and cello of a string quartet, did not appear until as late as 1897 (in Italy as well as in the U.S.) In the U.S., now-obscure makers such as Howe-Orme, Waldo and Gutmann built mandocellos, but as late as 1900, the Washburn catalog (a brand name of the Lyon & Healy company, the largest maker of fretted instruments at the time) still did not mention mandolas or mandocellos. Stewart, who offered banjos in various sizes and tunings. The concept of a family of related instruments playing together was a familiar one, not only from the different-sized bowed instrument of the violin family but also from banjo makers such as S.S. In the U.S., the mandolin began its rise after the arrival of the group known as the Spanish Students in 1880. In addition to his contributions as a composer and performer, Calace’s instrument featured a significant improvement – an added pair of strings tuned to a high-E (think of it as an octave mandolin with a low C string). Raffaele Calace, one of the most prominent Italian mandolin makers of the late 1800s was also the first prominent mandoloncellist. Italian mandolin makers made “mandoloncellos” as early as the 1700s, and they made them with the same bent-top, ribbed “bowlback” bodies as they did their mandolins. Prior to Loar, the mandocello had been just what the name suggests a mandolin tuned to the same pitch as a cello, with an appropriately large, mandolin-like body. However, the instrument that underwent the most radical change to become the Style 5 was neither the mandolin nor the guitar. Those models created a new sound and style and set a new design standard for archtop instruments that endures today. The violin-style f-holes of Gibson’s F-5 mandolin, L-5 guitar, and other Style 5 instruments, are the most famous and most significant elements of Lloyd Loar’s legacy as the designer of the Style 5 Master Model Series. Photo: Billy Mitchell, courtesy Gruhn Guitars.
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