No need to adjust your screen, or your eyeglass prescription. This fanned-fret ten string mandola / mandolin is the real deal!

These fan-fret 10-strings extend the range of the mandolin, optimizing the scale lengths from a mandola's low C note up to the high E of a mandolin and opening up new melodic and harmonic possibilities. Credit Mike Marshall and Lawrence Smart for conceiving and building (to our knowledge) the first of these wondrous beasts. Mike hipped Boston legend John McGann to the idea, paving the way for the open-minded, adventurous mandolinists of the world to follow.

Following Smart's lead, Max Girouard is among the few luthiers brave or crazy enough to try his hand at building a fan-fret 10 string, this example being one of just a handful like it he has made a few over the years. The instrument has the warm, punchy tone of a great mandola, with uncanny balance across all five courses.

Call us crazy, but we find it really easy adjusting to the fan frets. It is blast playing fiddle tunes in new keys and registers. Chord work is also surprisingly facile; all your current chord voicings will work, and new possibilities abound! If you have ever longed for that low C of a mandola but didn't want to give up your high-E string to do it, here you go.

This mando comes to us in very good overall condition; note light wear on the top, treble side. Price includes the hard case.