Southern California Music Co.

Southern California Music Co. (aka SoCal)
Southern California Music Co. are a California distributor founded by Frank J Hart in 1880 and still in business today.

Today they are now only one shop, (and this may have closed?) and mainly a piano retailer but in the early 20th century they had 6 shops in Los Angeles and San Diego, and were a distributor to other retailers.

Their own brand was Rolando and they used this on a range of Banjoleles, (made by or for them in California by George Sandstrom in the teens and moving to supply from the Chicago houses, (Samuel C. Osborn Mfg. Co. to start with) in the early 20's, plus some other instruments like Guitars. I have read of, but never seen a wooden Ukulele branded Rolando.

The Southern California Music Co also sold a lot of Hawaiian made Ukuleles at the time and may have owned the Manuel Nunes name from the late teens onward, (they commissioned the first ever steel strung Martin Guitars in 1916 and wanted some branded Rolando and some branded Manuel Nunes? This timeline would also fit with Leonardo Nunes leaving M. Nunes & Sons and striking out on his own?)

Rolando Banjoleles started out with a hole in the headstock for a strap, (originally they were sold with this string strap in place but the hole was stopped on the later ones), and no tailpiece with the strings going through small holes in the drum, (very similar to John Bolanders 1916 patent)

Omega Alpha Chi were a special batch of Sopranos made for a university sorority and featured the Greek letters on the headstock, possibly they provided a similar service for others too?