[laker0902]

Alright, so my aunt is telling me that she has an antique ukulele in her attic and brings it down for me to see it wanting to know if I could string it and make it playable again for her.

So it looks like the shape of a regular ukulele but with a longer neck and 8 tuning pegs along with 8 slots on the bridge to hold what appears to be would be doubled strings like on a mandolin.

I don't have a picture, but it looks like a ukulele that would be strung like a mandolin and wanted to know if anyone knew it's name, and how it would be tuned, etc.

thanks

~Sara

[improviduto]

It sounds like either a taro patch ukulele or a type of tiple.

[dadfad]

Possibly a double-coursed tenor maybe? (Most tenor guitars have only four strings.) (Like the tenor guitar equivelent of a 12-string).

[rasav]

Probably useless information, but around the turn of the century there was a mandolin fad, with schools teaching on mandolins, mandolin bands and most major manufacturers making mandolins in small medium and large sizes (Mandolin, mandola and mandocello.)
The body shapes vareied widely from beetle back to "a" and "f" styles to guitar body type instruments. It sounds like you might have a mandola from around this time period. Take it to a university music department to make sure. But if it's in good enough condition to string you can get any missing parts from elderly instuments and strings for the instrument from just strings.

I'm thinking the key tattletale would be the tuning pegs. If they are friction pegs mounted behind and up through the peg head, the I'd go with dadfad and say it's a 4 course uke. (Maybe a berritone?) If the pegs are side mounted and slotted then its a mando something.

That's my opinion and I'm bigger than everybody so there!!!

[The_buffalo]

Probably useless information, but around the turn of the century there was a mandolin fad, with schools teaching on mandolins...

True. Back in the late '20's, my dad played a little 8 string banjo, tuned & played like a mandolin (banjo mandolin). Mandolins were quite popular at this time, especially out west.