Mandolin
Mandolin Styles
Mandolins are found in a few different styles. The Neapolitan bowl-back 'tater bug' style is the oldest and original style of mandolin body. Quiet and delicate with a distinctive sound. The Mandolin Orchestras would have played a family of instruments of this type.
When Orville Gibson produced flatback mandolins, he designated two styles: 'A' or Artist and 'F' or Florentine. The F-style has ornate scrolling and points. Most manufacturers continue this designation today. Similar in sound, F-style tend to be favoured by Bluegrass and A-style by Folk, but not exclusively.
Note: Either 'F' style or 'A' style can have f-holes or oval holes.
Martin mandolins had styles from A to E denoting the amount of detail and quality. 'A' was the entry grade and 'E' was the most decorated.
A popular style at one time and still found today is the guitar shaped Selmer or Maccaferi style of mandolin. It has a guitar shaped body but scaled down to mandolin size. This particular example was made by Luthier Paul Hathway in London
Mandolins can be simply acoustic, electro-acoustic or purely electric. The elctro-acoustic is an acoustic mandolin with a pick-up and the electric is a solid body with pick-ups which needs an amplifier to be heard at all.