Mike's Oud Forums

1920 Oud?

johnb - 7-30-2013 at 05:11 AM

We have an oud that has a date of 1920. Inside of the oud it says the words Wanes Mebayed, ALEP (Syrie), and Rue Khandak. My wife got this oud from her aunt who is 90 years old. Her aunt now has dementia so she can tell us nothing about it. Can anyone give us any information on this? We have searched and can find nothing. Thanks for any help.

SamirCanada - 7-30-2013 at 06:11 AM

could be a treasure, although I have never heard of this maker.

please post some pictures.

Matthias - 8-4-2013 at 05:25 AM

Quote: Originally posted by johnb  
We have an oud that has a date of 1920. Inside of the oud it says the words Wanes Mebayed, ALEP (Syrie), and Rue Khandak. My wife got this oud from her aunt who is 90 years old. Her aunt now has dementia so she can tell us nothing about it. Can anyone give us any information on this? We have searched and can find nothing. Thanks for any help.


Hello.

can you help us with some pictures please?

Matthias

Dr. Oud - 8-23-2013 at 07:35 AM

There were many makers in the past that are not known to us today, but an oud of this vintage is certainly worth preserving or restoring. Age is the biggest factor in an oud's sound, and even crudely made ouds sound great if they are old. I can offer restoration service if you are interested, send some pictures including closeups of any damage for an estimate.
richard@droud.com

Pictures of oud

johnb - 9-7-2013 at 05:17 AM



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Alfaraby - 9-9-2013 at 10:33 AM



Wanees Mbayyed oud 1920

Wanees Mbayyed was one of Aleppo's active luthiers between 1920's -1970's, along with other masters such as Nai'm Dallal, George (pronounced: Jerjy) Hayek, Michel Khawam, Habib Abyad, Antoine Abras, Basil Totanjy, Antoine Yorgaky and later on, Jamil Qandalaft & Abdelmoin El Sajjan. No doubt, the senior maker was George Hayek, who was the teacher of all teachers and some others less known makers such as Salim Razzouq. Some were apprentices of other senior makers, Michel Khawam and Naim Dallal, and one was a student at his father's "academy", the famous Jamil Qandalaft, the son of Yorgaky.

All Aleppo's makers those years used to make two types of ouds: basic commercial and custom made ordered ouds. Looking at one commercial of any of them is like looking at others'. They all were almost similar, since they were graduates of the same school. Custom made ouds are different and each maker tried to invest his utmost to make the best ouds ever seen and/or heard . There lies the real rivalry.

Looking at George Hayek's ouds from 1912 & 1923 and at Salim Razzouq's 1943, they look almost the same !
On the other hand, looking at Michel Khawam's 1950's masterpieces for instance, we notice that there's no other oud like these, made by other Aleppo's makers. This is Khawam's fingertips, one can't miss.

Wanees Mbayyed ?
Nothing much is known about this maker, except for that he was active in the standard ouds market. Nothing much . Like Abyad & Abras, Yorgaky, Razzouq etc. , he made only commercial type of ouds and none of their custom made ouds were ever seen in person or later on, on the net. I even haven't seen any Dallal's or Hayek's custom made masterpieces and I was told they rarely made any.

As to this 1920 oud: this is the basic commercial type of Aleppo's ouds, made of cheap standard walnut with zero ornamentation or handcraft investment whatsoever. Even the rosette is the same like others', mostly ready made same old wooden rose. The pickguard is not the original for sure; so are the pegs.
I tend to believe it's a small oud, mostly the woman size so called Khanom (Lady) barely 48/34/17 cm or near.

Price ? No one can tell, but compared with George Hayeks' I once bought for less then a grand, this should not exceed such price at the maximum, but again, it's always subject to supply and demand formula. If you're dying to sell right away, you'd probably get some couple of hundreds, whilst if someone would commit a crime, just to get this oud, you'd get a couple of thousands.

To make the long story short, here's a fresh anecdote: On August 30, an auction was held in Miami, Fla. so an oud freak went to sniff around. He found a vintage oud made by Al-Ajhar in NYC, 3-4 decades ago. He examined the oud thoroughly and quickly decided he won't take it, not even for free. The oud was a total wreck and sounded more like a ukulele. To his astonishment, this piece was at last sold on the auction for not less than 2,550 $ !!
See ? It depends who wants to sell what to whom !

With due respect to your aunt and her oud, I will try to be very cautiously polite and say this oud's worth falls between 800 $ -1000 $, conditioned it sounds like heaven or at least like old Aleppo; just for its old age, though we haven't seen a date on the half pictured shot of the label. Another successful good close-up shot might tell us more about the age of this granny. 1920's labels I happen to examine weren't printed in such manner, but this might be only a hint, not a crucial issue anyway.

Good luck

Yours indeed
Alfaraby



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spyros mesogeia - 9-9-2013 at 03:01 PM

:airguitar: sweet pictures...Peace brothers