Antique Crate Dulcimer

 Here for your viewing pleasure is a box dulcimer I own that's made out of an antique shipping crate from what would one day become Kellogg's ("good for you!').  This dates back to the 1890's......and I just happen to be a very distant relative of the Kelloggs! 

Don Gardner is the luthier. He made this delightful instrument in 1994, and I acquired it in 2012. The VSL is 26"...not sure why the fretboard is the way it is, sticking out on both sides.  Maybe the box was exactly this size and Don didn't want to make the fretboard any shorter! 

The words say:

Eat Granola and Granose     Drink Caramel Cereal

B.C. Sanitarium Health Food Company

Battle Creek, Mich.

The Battle Creek Sanitarium (spelled this way to emphasize "sanitary") was run by the Kellogg family.

Granose was the first flaked cereal, just wheat with a little salt for flavor. Something like today's Wheaties, only worse.

Caramel Cereal was a coffee substitute (the Kelloggs were Seventh Day Adventists).  CW Post, who worked for the Kelloggs, left the company and started up his own.  He called his version of Caramel Cereal "Postum" and that's what caught on and is available again, having come back on the market in 2012.