Mandolin-banjo common in stores. Morgan Monroe has recently made three models, the MM-MB1 Mandolin Banjo the MM-MB2 Mandolin Banjo, and the Banjolin DLX (8 strings). The Morgan Monroe banjos look like traditional mandolin-banjos and have wooden resonators. The Cumbus model has a spun aluminum resonator. Prices currently range from around US $150 to US $700. In Italy, Musikalia manufactures three models of Mandolin Banjo, always with wooden resonator (mahogany, padouk or maple root wood veneered), animal skin, but gives an alternative between simple or double aluminium ring. Most instruction books concentrate on either the mandolin or the banjo. Mandolinists need more
Mandolin This has been sometimes modified to an elongated hole, called a D-hole. The body has a rounded almond shape with flat or sometimes canted soundboard. The type was developed in Europe in the 1850s. The French and Germans called it a Portuguese mandolin, although they also developed it locally. The Germans used it in Wandervogel. The bandolim is commonly used wherever the Spanish and Portuguese took it: in South America, in Brazil (Choro) and in the Philippines. In the early 1970s English luthier Stefan Sobell developed a large-bodied, flat-backed mandolin with a carved soundboard, based on his own cittern design;