Cas Mir Bandurria

This is a Spanish made Cas-Mir Bandurria that I had put the opening bid on because I love the stumpiness of Bandurrias, and no one bid so my opening bid for this won. I am not sure of the quality of the Cas-Mir Bandurrias, when I did some investigation of them all I found was a couple of people, (including the seller of this one), who had brought them back from Spain as souvenirs. So maybe its tourist tat but as they didn't play I had no serious reviews; once again I will know a lot more once it gets here?

It's here now and it is very, very stumpy! It also badly needs new strings, but apart from that its in good shape and it's more than reasonable enough quality if it is supposed to be tourist tat. My initial thought for playing it was to tune it and play it as an Octave Guitar. Fair enough plan but having done so, albeit with old strings, it is quite difficult to play. I know officially it is supposed to be played more like a 6 course Mandolin, mainly by playing individual notes, but I'm really not very good at that.

La Bella suggest Tuning: G#3 G#3, C#4 C#4, F#4 F#4, B4 B4, E5 E5, A5 A5
.035W - .035W ~ .030W - .030W ~ .023W - .023W ~ .019W - .019W ~ .014P - .014P ~ .010P - .010P