The cylinder-back is a style of
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
manufactured by the
Vega Company
The Vega Company was a musical instrument manufacturer that started operations in Boston, Massachusetts in 1881. The company began under Swedish-born Julius Nelson, his brother Carl, and a group of associates that included John Pahn and John Sw ...
of Boston, MA between 1913 and roughly 1925. The design patent (US patent number D44838) for the instrument was issued on November 4, 1913 to David L. Day, who was director and chief acoustical engineer for the stringed instrument division of the Vega Company. The unique design feature of the cylinder-back instruments (originally referred to as mando-lutes by their manufacturer) is a cylindrical bulge running longitudinally along the back plate, from the tailpiece to the neck heel. This bulge increases the internal volume of the instrument. The result has been described as a compromise between the earlier Neapolitan-style bowl-back mandolins and the more modern styles with relatively flat backs that were manufactured primarily in the United States around the time of the cylinder-back's first appearance. In addition to the mandolin, the same bulged-back concept was applied to the Vega
mandola
The mandola (US and Canada) or tenor mandola (Ireland and UK) is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola ...
, mandcello, and mando-bass as well as to a series of hybrid 10-string instruments than spanned the pitch range between adjacently-sized 8-string models.
Mandolin family instruments
{{Lute-stub