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AGP's Vintage Zither

Now that I have the Hubcap Building Bug out of my system (for the time being anyway), it’s time to turn my attention to a recent Ebay purchase, which popped up for auction on Ebay just before Xmas.
Its a Vintage Made in Germany, Zither/Guitar/Mandolin/Banjo ‘thingy’, the sellers starting price was $25 + $23.05 postage, and me, being the only Bidder, I ended up with a $48.05AUD, 5 Chord, 62 String Zither, which arrived in the post Jan 6th, along with a folder of the original Lessons etc., and while it is not in the true Cigar Box Guitar Style of Builds, it’s Fretless but Neckless, it also has 59 more Strings than my usual 3 String Builds, which to me sounds very scary!
While waiting for it to arrive, of course I did do some research into the Beast, and discovered that it was made in Germany specifically for an Australian Company called the Austral School of Music, who sold them as a package deal, with Sheet Music & Lessons etc, between 1925 and 1935, the company is still in operation in the Western Suburbs of Sydney.
Its missing abt 20 Strings, which are a mixture of Plain Steel, Wound Steel and Wound Bronze, there are also some shrinkage cracks to the back board, and the the glue has let go a bit on the Frame and the Sound and Back Boards, but I’m relying on my so called “Cigar Box Guitar Luthier Skills” to repair and make the thing into a playable instrument (while still retaining some of the Vintage Look), so I can then add it to my collection of instruments I can’t play ie; Banjos, Mandolins, Ukulele’s & 6 String Fretted Guitars etc. :-)

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Comment by AGP # on January 10, 2023 at 10:03am: Hi Taffy, the cost of Strings and Cigar Box's has always been an expensive exercise in the Land Down Under, when first starting out on my CBG Odyssey I bought bulk lots of different Gauge Strings from Artist Guitars, using mainly only the wound strings, which means I now have a heap of lighter gauge plain steel one gathering dust, however they have since priced themselves out of the market, also bought and tried the cheap Ebay Chinese strings, but the reason there so cheap is, they're very short in length, so for some time now I have been buying my Wound Strings in bulk 12 packs from C.B.Gitty, and despite the exchange rate and the ridiculous price of US postal rates, I still find it the cheapest way for me to buy strings, I recently purchased twelve 32, 26 &18 Nickel Wound Strings, which works out at $2.79 per string, the gauges they don't stock ie; 21, 19 &17 Nickel Wound, I buy here in Aus, in packs of 3 or 5, and they cost on an average abt $4.50+ per string. :-)

Comment by Taffy Evans on January 9, 2023 at 7:06pm: Hi AGP, I have found that the cost of strings and finding the correct set has often made the restoration exercise painful for me.

Taff