Mandolin-banjo became more popular. In the heyday of mandolin orchestras and banjo bands (late 19th–early 20th century), all sorts of instruments were produced. The mandolin-banjo is one of the hybrids that resulted. It enabled mandolinists to produce a banjo sound without having to learn that instrument's fingerings. The instrument adds the banjo's volume to the mandolin. The banjolin is different from the banjo-mandolin in the number of strings that it has. Banjolins today are supposed to have four strings instead of 8 strings (in courses or pairs). However, that distinction is not universal; the "banjolin" name was patented in 1885 by
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;