A beautiful custom Bitterroot A5 octave built in 2016 with maple back and sides and Rawhide burst finish, in excellent condition and a great price Photos to follow.

Fantastic rich and full sounding octave mandolin with 22" scale. It has great resonance and warmth and depth of tone with excellent definition and projection from the lowest to highest notes.

A5 style octave mandolin with hand graduated spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides. 22" scale length and 1 3/8" nut with a traditional Brekke bridge (adjustable under tension). The top is bound, the fretboard is radiussed and bound ebony and it has a solid/cast stainless steel tailpiece, dual action truss rod, Grover tuners, Celtic knot and 'Weber' headstock design and a custom hard case.

With a 22" scale length this is a very easy playing octave mandolin. The tone is rich and full with great projection.

Here is what Northfield have to say about it.

In creating our octave mandolin, we’ve pulled together a variety of specs and influences to create something with a unique voice and aesthetic. We found inspiration in vintage archtop and tenor guitars.

The ergonomics and size of the instrument needed to be considered carefully to not only ensure incredible sound, but also be comfortable for a mandolin player—this was often overlooked when it came to guitar bodied octave mandolins. The scale length and fretting hand stretch is always a consideration with octave mandolins, but equally important for comfortable playing is how the right arm reaches around the body of the instrument. The dimensions and flat back of our octave mandolin body yield something quite different than what is found on the market today.

As a reference we looked at C2 and C4 Martin guitars from the 1930s—these instruments were archtop guitars based on the body frame of a flat top guitar. We were able to get our hands on two original tops which had been removed from these Martin models by our good friend Joe Konkoly, head of the world renowned Elderly Instruments repair shop. Joe is a master luthier specializing in large jobs like converting the 30’s era Martin archtops to flattops as desired by many modern day players. While the Martin archtops are largely overlooked amongst other vintage examples, we recognized some very unique and desirable design qualities. They had a very unusual geometry to the arching of the top as well as the graduation. This arching, particularly the high peak of the arch running down the center of the instrument, yields a vibrant high end frequency response quite suitable for the octave mandolin. Increasing the volume of the instrument while keeping the balance and the articulation across all the strings was very important to us.

A beautiful F4 style octave mandolin with hand graduated spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides. It as a 20" scale length and 1 3/8" nut with a traditional Brekke bridge giving excellent playability. The top is bound, the fretboard is radiussed and bound ebony and it has a solid/cast stainless steel tailpiece, dual action truss rod, Grover tuners, Celtic knot and 'Weber' headstock design and a custom hard case.

Wonderful deep and full tone, fantastic warmth and resonance with well defined basses, complex mids and clear, ringing trebles and with the 20" scale it plays very easily.

Fantastic rich and full sounding octave mandolin with 20" scale making it very easy to play. It has great resonance and warmth and depth of tone with excellent definition and projection from the lowest to highest notes.

A5 style octave mandolin with hand graduated spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides. 20" scale length and 1 3/8" nut with a traditional Brekke bridge (adjustable under tension). The top is bound, the fretboard is radiussed and bound ebony and it has a solid/cast stainless steel tailpiece, dual action truss rod, Grover tuners, Celtic knot and 'Weber' headstock design and a custom hard case.

A beautiful F5 style octave mandolin with hand graduated spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides. It as a 20" scale length and 1 3/8" nut with a traditional Brekke bridge giving excellent playability. The top is bound, the fretboard is radiussed and bound ebony and it has a solid/cast stainless steel tailpiece, dual action truss rod, Grover tuners, Celtic knot and 'Weber' headstock design and a custom hard case.

It is tone bar braced so there is none of that floppiness common to flat top octave mandolins. It has great power and definition with plenty of character and depth of tone and excellent projection. With a 20" scale it is very easy to play.

PLEASE NOTE; WE CANNOT SHIP THIS INTERNATIONALLY THE SIZE AND WEIGHT ARE TOO GREAT.

TAMCO's first harp guitar and what a beauty. If you haven't heard a harp guitar you should check out Stephen Bennett

This really is incredible with a fantastic guitar tone and those wonderful rich and melodious harp strings.

The harp strings are currently tuned E G A C D E, low to high.

Top - Lutz Spruce
Back & sides - Rosewood
Neck - Mahogany/Rosewood/Maple
Fretboard - Ebony
Case - Colorado Case Co soft case
Plus corrugated plastic case

Frets to the body - 14
Scale length - 25.4"
Neck profile - C
Nut width - 44.0mm
Nut spacing - 7.5mm
Bridge spacing - 11.4mm
Action fret 1 low E - 0.5mm
Action fret 12 low E - 2.15mm
Action fret 1 high E - 0.5mm
Action fret 12 high E - 2.15mm
Lower bout width - 16"

Black/white/black purfling - Koa bindings - Ebony headstock veneer - No position markers (with abalone side dots) - Cocobolo rosette - Ebony bridge - Gotoh 510 mini tuners - Black tuner buttons - Bone nut and saddle - Ebony bridge pins

Customised for TAMCO to my specifications, with incredible quilted maple back and sides, this is a very special mandola.

All the depth and warmth you would expect from a great mandola but with the legendary Collings definition and projection. Yes you can have it all, resonance and clarity in one package. Mandolas don't get any better than this.

Select Adirondack spruce top
Select figured maple back, sides and neck
Parallel tone bar bracing
F-soundholes
Ivoroid binding
Satin nitrocellulose lacquer finish
Bound "Haircut" headstock
13 Degree headstock angle
Ebony peghead overlay with inlaid Collings logo
Ebony fingerboard
Mortise and tenon neck joint
22-frets, neck joins the body at the 15th fret
V shaped neck profile with 1 9/16" string spacing
5 1/2"-11 5/8" Compound fingerboard radius
1 11/16" Bone nut
15.9" Scale length
Medium 18% nickel-silver fretwire
Mother of pearl dot fingerboard inlays
Fully adjustable truss rod
Custom adjustable floating ebony bridge
Collings original one-piece nickel tailpiece
Nickel tuners with black or pearl buttons
Collings deluxe hardshell case

A fantastic custom order.

Double bound body, red sunburst on spruce top, bound oval soundhole, 3 ring rosette, mahogany neck, bound ebony fretboard, dot inlays, 24 frets (professional re-fret), original tailpiece cover and bridge, fleur-de-lis and logo inlays, 4-on-a-plate tuners with Handel inlaid tuner buttons. In excellent condition with low action.

It sounds fantastic, lots of that great vintage gibbo tone with solid bases, sweet mids and clear trebles.

With original case (not the modern one shown in the photos).