Description
(I copied the following text from the Retro Fret site. They did and excellent job with this history lesson)
Gibson Style DY Army-Navy Special Model Flat Top Mandolin, c. 1920, made in Kalamazoo, Michigan, dark brown varnish finish, birch back and sides, spruce top; mahogany neck with ebony fingerboard.
The “Style DY” was a short-lived Gibson experiment, the company’s first attempt at a very low-cost instrument. Using the general flat-bodied design of the slightly earlier “Alrite” model, the “Army-Navy Special” dispensed with all decorative trim and sported a utilitarian brown finish overall. There was a matching guitar as well (Gibson’s first flat-top 6-string), and the initial aim was to sell the plain if functional instruments to Doughboys at military PX’s.
World War I had pretty much ended by the time production got under way, but the instruments were built for several more years in fairly small numbers. The DY had a distinctive sound, and despite its short shelf life is well-remembered…the Flatiron company was founded to produce a re-issue of this model in 1977.
Gibson kept the plain-jane low-cost line alive with the “Junior” models introduced after 1919, but the “A-Jr.” mandolin was built with a carved top, leaving the flat-top mandolin design to languish until the 1930’s. The DY has a unique tone, bright and peppy but with a distinctly Gibson flavor. This is a good-playing and sounding example of this fairly rare mandolin.
