maxidelanian - 6-17-2010 at 07:54 PM
Hello everybody, I'm from Argentina, I've got this antique Oud, and I would like to know if anybody knows about this kind of small size Oud. It's a
very good quality instrument, very nice and sweet voice, smells like lemon inside.
I attached some pics.
more pics at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51228889@N05/show/
Thank you, hope to hear something soon! 
oudipoet - 6-18-2010 at 12:49 AM
it looks Greek to me but i am not 100% sure it might also be Turkish if you could take a picture of the label it would help determine it for sure.
jdowning - 6-18-2010 at 04:51 AM
It might be a Turkish 'girl size' as most of the dimensions seem to fit the classical proportions (or are very close) - i.e string length 54 cm,
fingerboard length 18 cm, distance from neck joint to bridge 36 cm and width 33.75 cm.
However, the centre of the main sound hole should be 18 cm from the neck joint (midway between neck joint and bridge) and the bridge 9 cm from the
bottom of the bowl - so the sound hole is a bit too high and the bridge a bit too low proportionally.
The pattern of the rosette is interesting as it incorporates the so called 'knot of Leonardo' in its design - a feature that is sometimes found in old
European lute rosette design.
Is there a date on the label?
maxidelanian - 6-18-2010 at 06:10 AM
Hi! thanks for your comments,
The man who sold this Oud to me told me that it belonged to his uncle, who came from Egypt. The Oud was at his home for many decades.
The label is not inside the Oud, unfortunately something happend to it. I can see the 4 points of glue where the label seems used to be, but somebody
must have taken it off. I can't tell for shure.
The rosettes are made of bone I guess.
The madrab seems to be carey.
Thanks, Max.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51228889@N05/show/
jdowning - 6-18-2010 at 12:33 PM
Just for information, my understanding is that there are four traditional sizes of Turkish oud :-
String length 54 cm - Girl size
String length 55.5 cm - Woman size
String length 57 cm - small man (or boy) size
String length 58.5 cm - man size
..... all in the same relative geometrical proportions e.g. finger board length is 1/3 string length etc.
A very nice oud.
fernandraynaud - 6-19-2010 at 02:17 AM
Jdowning: Any thoughts on the new Sukars, which have retained the full sized bowl, but moved the bridge up for a 600 mm scale length, instead of his
old 615 mm scale? Does my guess, that it's to optionally allow Turkish tunings using vanilla strings, seem plausible to you? Aleppo's not far from the
Turkish border 