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This is a rare pic of Mongo playing the first set of bongos Lp ever made.
Peace
OLsongo

And this is a pic of those bongos.
Peace
Olsongo

Olsongo: thanks for posting up the picture, is it me or are those solid shells? Anyways it would be great if LP would bring out a "special edition" line of these bongos, they look very nice & traditional...I love the centerblock..

wow...i think many of us would appreciate a LP release of these bongos...LP had the right idea from the get go

Bongo ..you know they look and I can honestly say they are made from one piece, due to the width of the wood grain marks ...they look very wide .With staves the width is narrower and the surface has a more fragmented broken grain.On the design ...if the hammer works why fix it.
Peace Olsongo

LP never made those, Gonzalo Vergara did. Those bongos were sent to Mongo in NY by his mother Felicia from La Habana. Mongo's son Monguito now has those and I got the others that were also Willie Bobo's. Those are solid Caoba Vergara's. I got a pair of Vergara's that belonged to Manteca (Lazaro Pla) that look just like tose. Matthew made the hardware. Photo enclosed.

Dario

Marin Cohen claims that those bongos are the first set of bongos he ever made and in the photo , Mongo is trying them out at the Club Cubano Interamericano in the Bronx, NY . His words , if it is another story ...I have heard many.
Peace
Olsongo

Mongo had a standing law suit againts Cohen for over 30 yrs. You never saw Mongo advertising an LP product, you saw Patato, R. Barretto, Candido and Peraza, never Mongo. Cohen has always been a photographer, he had photos of Mongo going back to the early 1960's late 50's. This happens to be one of those photos.
Olsongo, you know your stuff, those bongos don't look anything LP, they got Vergara written all over them. Let him prove they are LP.

original vergara hardware? Didn't it look quite diferent than those?
PC

I'm sure Dario is right about this. those were made by Vergara.

But, Martin once told me that he made 3 solid shell bongos. I didn't ask but I believe they were the first ones he made.

According to Mongo, who was a mailman in La Habana in the 40's and Alfredo Farach, a drum set timbales maker in Cuba, the hardware for both congas and bongos was made at a welding shop in the "Zanja" district of Habana, a predominantely Chinese neighborhood. Sometimes they would use rivets in both crowns and bottom pieces and sometimes they would weld the pieces. The hardware in those bongos don't look LP. Monguito, Mongo's son, has those bongos presently after his father died and I got the other pair.

A Chinese neighborhood in Cuba. Cool! I never heard of that. Mongo played a mean stick on bongo's. Wonder if damage the bearing edge?

Mongo used to play "stick on bongo" at The Palladium in NYC, he used to be the one who used to "repiquetiar en la rumba" when people like "Cuban Pete" and "Luis Maquina" used to dance rumba. Once with the Fania All Star Mongo played stick on bongo and Roberto Roena got pissed. Mongo, the best "stick on bongo" player that ever was!

Dario

Bongobilly wrote:A Chinese neighborhood in Cuba. Cool! I never heard of that. Mongo played a mean stick on bongo's. Wonder if damage the bearing edge?

Yes, they actually have a chinatown in Habana still to this day, there's evena cemetary where all the writing is in chinese characters. I actually worked with a chinese guy from camaguey, Victor Wong, el chino cubano! The mexican kids used to talk a bunch of mess in class in Spanish and Victor would always surprise them. Cuidao, hablo espanol! AS for stick on bongo listen to all those old tito puente recordings like ti mon bo etc. etc. Slammin!