Mandolin
Maker
Orville Gibson
Maker
Gibson
Date1903
Place MadeKalamazoo, Michigan, United States, North America
ModelStyle F-2 Artist
Serial No.none
SignedWritten in black on paper label: Made by / O.H.Gibson [sic] / Kalamazoo / 1903MarkingsStamped on tension tuner hardware: PAT MAY8-88.
Engraved on later tailpiece: Gibson
Written in pencil on inside of upper treble rib: X
DescriptionThis instrument was made by Orville Gibson soon after he sold the rights to his mandolin patent to the partnership that established the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co. on October 11, 1902. One of the fanciest of his surviving instruments, it is remarkably similar to the earliest Style F-2 Artist mandolins made by the Gibson Company. Like all the instruments made by Orville after the sale of his patent, this mandolin bears a large, handwritten label rather than one of the various printed examples found in instruments made before the incorporation of the firm. The Style F, with its eccentric and flamboyant scroll in the upper portion of the body and the decorative points below it, is an iconic symbol of the tremendous popularity of Gibson mandolins during the early twentieth century. Orville had developed the model by at least 1900 (when the first dated examples appear), but it is unknown when or how the idea first occurred to him. The back, sides, and neck of this mandolin are carved from a block of laminated walnut slabs, just like the first several hundred production instruments made by the nascent Gibson Company. Although NMM 14395 appears bulkier and bolder in design than later Style F mandolins that were made with separate backs and ribs, it is feather-light in weight, a feature common to all of Orville Gibson’s instruments.
Stringing: eight steel strings
Soundboard: arched, one-piece, quarter-cut spruce: medium grain; mother-of-pearl eye inlaid at center of scroll
Back: one-piece, slab-cut walnut carved with rounded edges
Ribs: walnut, carved from one piece, continuing slightly into contour of neck
Head: walnut inlaid with white abalone star and crescent, second piece of wood grafted between upper and lower pegs; black lacquer on face
Neck: walnut; hollowed with round hole in base; walnut extension over back of head from separate pice
Heel cap: none; back comes to point at neck heel
Binding: alternating blocks of white abalone and black-finished wood on top only
Fingerboard: ebony; 24 nickel-silver frets, 19 under all strings, 20 under A, and 24 under E; single mother-of-pearl dots behind 5th, 7th, 10th, 15th, and 20th frets; double mother-of-pearl dots behind 12th and 17th frets
Nut: bone
Bridge: ebony; circles cut through bridge between each course of strings; bridge ends with two decorative scrolls on each side
Tuners: six nickel-silver tension pegs with ivoroid heads
Endpin: none
Tailpiece: nickel-plated steel; later
Rosette: oval soundhole with rosette set in 1/4” from edge; rosette comprised of white and blue abalone strips surrounded on each side by strips of angled, alternating light and dark hardwood, which in turn are surrounded on each side by smaller strips of angled, alternating light and dark hardwood
Pick guard: black material with white abalone festooned border, inlaid with white abalone and white metal cherubs, branches, a bird, and a butterfly
Lacquer: black on top and on headstock; clear on back, ribs, and neck; thick; later, probably by Gibson in the 1960s
Linings: none
Neck block: none
End block: none
Top bracing: transverse brace below soundhole
Grafts: none
Other: burned friction marks on inside of ribs in some places
DimensionsTotal mandolin length: 687 mm (40-7/8″)
Back length from neck heel: 373 mm (21-3/8″); from upper bass rib: 382 mm
Upper bout width at widest point of scroll: 106 mm (12-3/8″); at two points: 182 mm
Waist width: 156 mm (10-1/4″)
Lower bout width: 259 mm (18″)
Rib height (including edging) at heel: 59 mm (2-5/16″)
Rib height, at waist: 59 mm (2-9/32″)
Rib height, at endpin: 59 mm (2-9/32″)
Head length: 180 mm (6-15/16″)
Head width, top: 105 mm (3-9/16″)
Head width, bottom: 62 mm (2-9/16″)
Neck length (nut to ribs): 150 mm (12-1/2″)
Neck width, nut: 31 mm (1-5/8″)
Neck width, heel: 36 mm (2-1/2″)
Soundhole height: 41 mm (3-5/32″)
Soundhole width: 76 mm (5-21/32″)
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): 366 mm (25-21/32″)
ProvenancePurchased from Gruhn Guitars, Nashville, Tennessee, 2009.
Credit LineAndré P. and Kay Marcum Larson Fund, 2009
Object number14395
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