Nice purchases!

Thanks for sharing your thought process. Good reasoning, I think!

I look forward to hearing you play these.

@Strumelia: There where several reasons:

1.) First of all: the buyer of the Vespa payed a very fair amount of money for it - so I bought to dulcimers because I could afford to do so after selling my scooter...

Seriously:

2.) As I intend to play together with other musicians occasionally, I wanted to be able to play in a different key.

3.) I am fond of things that are smaller than the standard (e.g. Ukulele instead of guitar etc.). The Ginger has some advantages (e.g. portability when travelling), and still full playability. I was really curious to see and play a Ginger in "real life".

4.) The standard McSpadden has a VSL that is more than 1 inch longer than that of my Hora. As I play Chord and Fingerpicking most of the time I was not sure whether the longer VSL could cause problems. So I decided to order two different instruments (and saving shipping costs and customs fees etc.). As an option, I thought that I could still sell one of them via ebay here in Germany in case I can't get along with the one or the other. But that won't happen - I love them both!

Hope to be able to present a video recording soon... :)

Goschi, tell us why you got the two different sized dulcimers- to play in different keys, to travel with, or....?

Very nice looking instruments.

Wonderful!!!! I have a Vespa scooter as well....used to ride it a lot and now hardly at all. Hmmmmm...maybe I should sell it for dulcimers! :) :)

Congratulations on your new babies. Look forward to hearing them!

Yes!
I sold my Vespa scooter in September (I didn't drive very often in the last years) and that enabled me to order these beautiful instruments. They look and sound great - and the service and communication with Jim Woods was outstanding. I hope to be able to do some video recordings later today...

Beautiful! Did you just get them??