2024 Circle Strings Octave Mandolin

Octave Mandolin SN: 223

This is a Circle Strings Octave Mandolin. It features a flattop guitar Spanish-style body with an Adirondack spruce top and highly figured maple for the back and sides. The neck is mahogany, the fingerboard is cocobolo and the bridge is ebony. The scale length is 23,” the fingerboard radius is 16” and the nut width is 1 ½.” 

The neck joins the body at the fourteenth fret and there are twenty one frets in total. The neck is a comfortable “C” shape that transitions to a “D” shape as you ascend. The neck depth at the first fret is 0.850” and the depth at the ninth fret is 0.975.” The lower bout of the body is 13 ½” wide the upper bout is 8 ⅞” wide and the body depth is 4.”  

The headstock features an ebony headplate with the Circle Strings logo inlaid in mother of pearl. A single white line of purfling runs around the edge and there are four-on-a-plate Schaller tuners with black buttons mounted. The back of the headstock is veneered in ebony which ends at the curve of a volute as the headstock transitions towards the neck. 

A single line of white purfling runs around the edge of the fingerboard. There are mother of pearl dot markers at the fifth, seventh, tenth, twelfth and fifteenth frets. The front and back of the body are bound in cocobolo with a seven ply white-black-white purfling for the top and two ply black-white for the side and back purfling. The outer ring of the rosette is herringbone bracketed by three ply black-white-black binding and the inner ring is a three ply black-white-black. 

The body is finished in a lightly applied Tangerine Burst. It highlights the grain pattern, both medullary rays and figuring both on the top and the curly back and sides. When played, each note is clear and resonant, with a wide array of overtones and plenty of sustain and projection.