Mark, love your lantern avatar. I have a small collection of them.
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Bob
Site Moderator
The greatest music is made for love, not for money -- Greg Lake
Mark, love your lantern avatar. I have a small collection of them.
Thank you for posting this. That's a very interesting instrument..... whatever it is!
Yep -- that listing says Actual Weight = 10 pounds, Shipping Weight = 70 pounds!
Some words of warning on the shopgoodwill.com website, for those of you not familiar with auction sites: Always check the estimated shipping & handling fees before you bid. Most will be rounded up to the nearest lb. above the weight of the instrument. Some will have you pay for 30 lbs. or so, plus handling, on a 4 lb. instrument. Not as good a deal if you have to tack on another 30 bucks to the auction price. Check the photos carefully for damage, and always read the Condition and Notes section below the photos. Some of the dulcimers are damaged, but may be a great deal for those of you who like to restore. Don't place your bid until near the closing time of bidding, you will only drive up the price. And set a maximum price, the maximum you are willing to pay, and the site will raise your bid 1.00 at a time until your maximum bid is reached. This is a good way to keep emotions out of your bids too. Good luck
Ahhh! Not seen the pictures - just realised I've only got the 1st Edition! Time to upgrade....
Looks to me as if it may be some sort of copy of the Siegrist dulcimer (the patented instrument that Ken refers to). See Ralph Lee Smith "Appalachian Dulcimer Traditions" 2nd edition pp. 142-144. It may even be an actual Siegrist, although I think they are usually clearly labelled with the maker's name (Paul L Siegrist).
Saw this also...and urged them to go through a specialilst site like this or Everything Dulcimer, because they will limit their market severely by the limitations they've placed on collection.
Either way, it's an interesting item. Surely not an appalachian dulcimer in any real sense though - it's strung like an epinette/scheitholt/hommel and even seems to have the chromatic frets interleaving the diatonic, as some fretted zithers do. It's not clear whether the bars operate on the drones, the second melody course or both...
Fascinating any way....
Ken....I'm on it. It's about 3 hours away. My type of thing!
I definitely would bid on that if I were in Oregon and could pick it up. I have only seen pictures of those and the patent information in magazines. It is a very interesting instrument.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
Thought I would share this curious setup from the goodwill website. Anyone seen something like this before?