❌ SOLD ❌ Breedlove Cascade Mandolin Natural 2008

Here’s an interesting Breedlove Cascade Mandolin from 2008, sporting an armrest and a Tone-Gard! Not only is it in great shape, but staff feel it’s one of the best mandolins in the shop at present.

Breedlove is based in Bend, Oregon, and built a reputation with innovative designs and hand-built quality. They presently offer two general lines of Mandolins, the US made, hand built and more expensive models, and a lower-priced line built in China to Breedlove’s design and specifications. All of the instruments are top quality.   

This Breedlove Cascade is likely named for the Cascade Mountains, a range that passes through Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. It is perhaps a modified “A style” design, where the lower part of the body is teardrop shaped and the upper part has truncated horns, somewhat suggesting an “F style”. The body is built with Sitka Spruce for the carved, F-hole top, and flamed Maple for the sides, neck and carved back. The head plate, bridge and fingerboard are Ebony. On the truss rod cover, there’s a discreet inlay of perhaps a Ram’s head, a very nice little touch.

This mandolin is in very good condition, and has been used enough to be refretted recently. The arm rest and Tone-Gard have been added and help with letting the body resonate fully, without damping from being held or pressed against the player.

There is another little detail that the owner has added – you may notice in the top view a set of four dots in the strings between the tailpiece and bridge.  These are small, ordinary rubber grommets,  slipped in between the string pairs to dampen the vibration of that section of string.   I use larger ones on Bigsby or Trapeze equipped guitars.   It’s an inexpensive way to address the issue of over-ringing in that section,  and grommets are available in most hardware stores.  

The original hard shell case is included.

More Info on Tone-Gard.