Interesting instrument ... and early.
The headstock and tail are entirely different than the design he employed faithfully for at least 30 years.
There's no zero fret, placing it in the early 1970s and any time earlier. The low serial number may or may not imply something from his initial work in the late 1950s. I know he had more than one number series.
Fortunately, the frets with pitch errors all lean flat! I do the same on my Jeffreys player, built in 1991, which I treasure. I keep another here in Hong Kong that he built in 1962, but I rarely play it.
Ben Seymour recently installed an entirely new fretboard pattern on a Jeffreys for me. It is still in the US so I have not played it yet. You can hear it (barely) here:
At the height of the market a few years back, I saw a Jeffreys sell for $400 on eBay. It wasn't in particularly good shape. But even very nice ones typically only fetch $100 -$150, as most buyers assume that the intonation is not in equal temperament (and that's true at least for the six or seven that I have played).
I find that the intonation on the older instruments -- those without a zero fret -- is a bit better. Many of these are entirely solid wood, too, where most of the later ones are all ply except for the top and the fretboard. Yours may be one of these.
The Jeffreys I test drove a few months ago was a lovely thing- normal scale length but quite shallow, lightweight, and smallish box compared to what we usually see being made today (so many boomy 'dreadnought dulcimers' these days...lol!). The main reason I didn't buy it was that the fretboard was only 1/2" high and that made it very awkward to play with a noter. There was not sufficient room for my hand or knuckles while sliding up and down, didn't seem to matter how I held the noter. This was an odd feature for a diatonic dulcimer which naturally favors traditional playing styles. It wouldn't be an issue if someone only played by fretting with the fingers on the melody string (fingerdancing). At the time I wondered if all his fretboards were low like that, and it also made me wonder if he himself had any experience in playing with a noter.
He was really a tireless campaigner for the dulcimer, and apparently a guy with a lot of dignity and charm. I only wish he had recognised the errors in his fret pattern. Had he done so, his instruments would be worth many times what they are.
The same is true for a number of seminal builders of the period, though.
Ben Seymour just refretted a four-string Jefffreys for me. It sounds lovely. Even with the original fretwork, though, the sweet, plaintive sound of his dulcimers is absolutely authentic and very difficult to find now.
Richard
Richard. I have a letter from Mr Jeffreys from 12/72 that said that his 4 string dulcimers at $70 were all walnut and his 3 string dulcimers $65 were all cherry. He said that he was out of cherry lunber at the time so only 4 string walnut models were avaliable. He said in his letter that he builds reproductions of ancient musical instruments as a hobby. and I quote.... "The dulcimer I make on order, partly because I believe such a beautiful and useful instrument should be better known".... He enclosed a photo of his dulcimer and requested I mail it back so he could pass it on... Them were the days... Bob.
Interesting ... I was wondering when he had started using a zero fret. This narrows it down.
Four-string Jeffreys are pretty uncommon. Nice instrument!
Best,
Richard
The years that I've owned this particular dulcimer (about 20 years now), I have been asked if it was homemade and if I had made it. So, I suspect that it could have been one that someone did make in their wood shop or garage. Isupposethat I will never know that. But, regardless, it is the search for the identity of the maker of the instrument based on the booklet which led me to this wonderful site of mountain dulcimeraficionados.
Pristine2, Thanks for you comments. I suspect that you are probably right. As I had stated earlier, there is nothing to indicate who the maker of the instrument was. All that I did have was the booklet by Jeffreys, which is still in my possession. All I know of the history was that the man I bought it from at the flea market in Houlton had paid $20 and was looking for $30, to which I turned away only because I knew nothing of the dulcimer (hadn't heard or seen one at that point in time) and I didn't have a musical background, so $30 really didn't have much appeal to me. However, as I turned to go away, he asked if I had $25 for it and (coincidentally that was what I had in my pocket) I thought for a minute that what would I be risking...if I didn't like it I could probably get my investment back, so I paid the man and thus far have purchased 7 more paying a few dollars more than my original investment.
So, anyway, I learned to play and enjoy the instrument and the rest is my story...which I am sticking to....
Hi and thanks for the photo!
It's a lovely instrument - I especially like that whimsical, narrow strum hollow. Very little to remind me of Jeffreys, though. The instrument appears almost certainly to be the work of another builder.
The shape, the soundholes, the wide fretboard and the geared tuners (assuming they are original) have nothing in common with Jeffrey's typical work, which barely changed from 1960 until his last instruments in 1991.
Earlier Jeffreys instruments would not have thin gauge fretwire like this one. And without info to the contrary, I'd guess that this instrument was made in the 1970s or later.
Jeffrey's book was available independently of his instruments and its presence with the dulcimer is not indicative of the builder. It's always possible that he was experimenting, but unless you have some other reason to suspect it was made by Jeffreys, it almost certainly was not.
Sure looks like a fun instrument, though! Would love to hear it played.
I have number 1865. It was my first dulcimer. I bought it back in 1972. I still play it and its still in mint condition. I would never think of selling it. What a wonderful tone it has. The top is spruce, sides and back are walnut plywood. Fretboard is 3/4" high and easily played with noter. I still have the original noter that came with the instrument, a skimpy 1/4" walnut dowel stick. It came with a really nice pick made out of something resembling a thin strip of electronic circuit board material that made Galax style tunes sound real good. 27" scale and rosewood pegs, intonation is a bit off for finger style but I learned to compensate for that. Bob.
I've seen a couple Jeffreys dulcimers without labels, and one (from 1961) where he signed the instrument in pencil on the inside back panel. It's possible that the adhesive on the label in your instrument simply failed and it fell out, but you might take a good look inside with a flashlight.
If it is shaped like a Jeffreys, I doubt it is a copy. I have wondered, though, whether Jeffreys may have also sold kits, like many makers did -- I know he advertised in craft magazines, but I've never seen one of the ads and don't know whether kits were an option.
Not long after my initial post to this thread my computer died, rendering a lot of data unavailable (it was backed up, but the encryption key doesn't work). Unfortunately the address and telephone of Jeffrey's son in Virginia is in that data.It seems to be irretrievable, but the man's name is Jeffreys and I remember he is still living near Staunton. Your post inspires me to track him down.
By the way, Ben Seymour is doing a complete re-fret of a Jeffreys for me. Imagine those sweet plaintive tones of the Jeffreys intoning in equal temperament! Yum.
Richard
Benjamin W Barr Jr said:
I believe that I may have an early model of an A W Jeffreys, Jr. dulcimer. When I purchased it in Houlton, Maine a number of years ago, it came with the booklet that has been mentioned earlier. It is the revised version (1964) that I have. However, the dulcimer is not signed, so it is possible that someone could have made a copy of one of Jeffrey's dulcimers. The description is similar. The action was high, but I had it lowered.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread...after all, it was a search for information on Jeffreys that has led me to this site and I think it is going to be a good place to hang out.
I believe that I may have an early model of an A W Jeffreys, Jr. dulcimer. When I purchased it in Houlton, Maine a number of years ago, it came with the booklet that has been mentioned earlier. It is the revised version (1964) that I have. However, the dulcimer is not signed, so it is possible that someone could have made a copy of one of Jeffrey's dulcimers. The description is similar. The action was high, but I had it lowered.
Anyway, I wanted to comment on this thread...after all, it was a search for information on Jeffreys that has led me to this site and I think it is going to be a good place to hang out.
Any of the ball-ends, regardless of their marketing, should do fine -- at least that's what my experience suggests. I purchase individual guitar strings for all my dulcimers -- any decent music store that sells guitars will have lots of 'em on hand. You can also order 'em: http://www.juststrings.com/singlestrings.html
For instance, for my dulcimer in GDD tuning, I do .22 for the bass string and .12 for the other strings. On DAD dulcimers, I do .24, .18, and .12. Those are both Folkcrafts, by the way, so probably the same neck length as yours.
Interesting concept of Water is Wide whith Shenendoah. I'd love to hear that.
Bill
B. Ross Ashley said:I guess I don't do genre Old Time either. I like stuff like Stephen Foster's "Hard Times", the traditional "Old Joe Clark", and others of that ilk, but I'm not enamored of the okeh Records style, no. I do Red River Valley in Pete Seeger's style, mainly because I love the alternate words he put to it back in the late 30s, There's a Valley in Spain Called Jarama. I do Git Along Little Dogies/Streets of Laredo, and The Water is Wide crossed with Shenandoah, 'cause I like them. ;)
I have a different view on it. After all, a good chunk of Bluegrass music is from old-time songs, tunes, and ballads but played in a more modern bluegrass style. I don't think of it as 'old-time' music then- it's then bluegrass music, derived from old-time music sources. If someone played Shady Grove in Latin salsa style, it wouldn't be old-time music. And it wouldn't be bluegrass then either.Thus, I think of old-time music as being both the material (due to its age and other very distinctive characteristics) and the style in which it is played. It certainly can be a shadowy defining line between things sometimes though. Sometimes things are hybrids of two styles or two sources, etc.Carson, I'm going to say that "Old Time Music" is definitely more that just a core of basic tunes and songs. It is by this time developed into a genre of music with it's own sound coming from a basic cultural core but spiced with a variety of other cultures musical ingredients.
You can play the core of music without the sound that is now associated with "Old Time Music"
I'm a huge fan of Shady Grove and several style permutations of that tune. It just speaks to me for some reason.
The question I'd toss back is whether Old Time music is a core collection of songs from a period as opposed to a style of rendering tunes of any period? I play Old Time (as well as several variations) and tend to think it's more a performing aesthetic than a particular list of tunes.
Just my thought though. A friend and I do a pretty good If You Seek Amy in Old Time style that gets more than a few raised eyebrows. I'm betting that many of what we call bluegrass tunes can be traced back to pre-bluegrass and into Old Time -- and possibly further back into vernacular folk styles.
Interesting reminder, Folkfan!
Let's keep in mind that early American music was influenced by various other ethnicities and cultures besides English, Irish, and Scottish. In old-time music one can hear the definite influence of African rhythm in particular, and there were also influences of the French, Native Americans, Scandinavian, Spanish, German, etc etc.... But the African influence is clearly there, with rhythm (especially as contributed with clawhammer/gourd banjo and tambourine/bones), also as early blues scales (applied to both the instrumental music and singing).I do know that as an 'american old-time' musician, I have a terrible time trying to play along in Irish sessions. Even if the tune is one I already play in old-time style...the rhythm is so different, I mostly fail! The rhythm difference really trips me up- to me it's almost like trying to write on a paper while looking at it in the mirror. =8-o
