Who made the first electric mandolin?
It depends on who you ask. The Stromberg-Voisinet company of Chicago (which later became Kay) produced an unsuccessful line of electric instruments, which were advertised in the 1929 Purchasers Guide to the Music Industry. At least one source has alleged that said line included a mandolin. I would be most delighted if anyone could produce a copy of the ad confirming this. The earliest mention of an electric mandolin that I’ve seen is in the 1932 catalog published by the Electro String Instrument Corporation, better known today as Rickenbacker Guitars. Give most of the credit to Rickenbacker co-founder George Beauchamp, who developed the company’s famous horseshoe pickup and apparently asked one of his engineers to slap one on a flat-top mahogany mandolin. Aside from the one prototype pictured in the catalog, I don’t know how many of these were actually built and sold. Lloyd Loar’s ViViTone company built a number of electric instruments, including a mandolin, mandola and mandocello (dat
