Tell us about your VERY FIRST dulcimer
General mountain dulcimer or music discussions
My very first dulcimer was purchased by my in-laws in Berea, Kentucky long before I met my wife. No one in her family ever learned to play it. It was "loaned" to me around 1987-8. I learned enough on it to know I wanted to get a better instrument and did so a few years later. That first one now hangs on the wall of our family room. I take it down now and then and tune it up and play it a bit. I would never part with it.
The details of it: It is an hourglass with a very narrow body (by current standards) and has two heart-shaped soundholes in the lower bout and two small round ones in the upper bout. It was made by Raymond Layne of Berea, Kentucky and is dated April 20, 1975 and is numbered 293. It is the instrument I am holding in my profile picture.