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Instruments Click on the titles to see an image of each musical delight. Lovely old workhorse in swing tuning. The pick up I use is an Optimus head set mic on the right hand and an internal bass mic on the left. Both are mixed through an internal active preamp (1x aa battery) with a mono jack output underneath the box. Works brilliantly and sounds like a melodeon which, when dealing with melodeon amplification, is not always the result. Pickup/amplifier designed and built to my idea by Brian Hirst. Cost about £40 and I've not yet heard anything appreciably better.
Okay, this started out as a G/C. Frankly I had no idea what key it was in when I bought it. It was on e-bay in Syracuse NY. I just loved the colour. When it arrived I swapped over the reed blocks with some lovely ones from a red pearloid A/D Erica which was a little, erm , knackered you might say... I can find no information on this particular model at all. I know it came to America with an immigrant family after or perhaps during the war. The German newspapers in the case are interesting, from 1936, 1943 and 1946.
I bought this for £60 from a bloke in the pub. Actually it was Mick Brooks. It was a little threadbare so I enhanced it's beauty by sticking clear blue film on the belows and ends and colouring in the wooden bits that cover the holes (anyone know the technical term for these?) with felt tip pen. The stops are held up by an industrial strength hair bobble kindly donated by Fee Lock. It sounds much as you would expect.
Rosewood back and sides and solid sitka spruce top. This guitar is a delight. I use DADGAD tuning. Nothing more to be said, except that I am forever grateful to Roger Edwards who sold it to me. He is a gent.
Fylde Archtop Cittern Lovely instrument
And talking of instruments....
Does anyone know of the whereabouts of the Hohner D/G Erica pictured here? It went walkabout in Rochdale in 1994. As you can see it has red white and black diagonally striped material behind the metal grille. This is actually separate strips of material sewn together rather than a single printed piece.The bellows are black vinyl taped with metalic red and silver tape applied on top. the bass end strap has some leather work tooling on it. If you take the treble end grille off, there are 2 tin tacks knocked in, originally to attach elastic bands for emergency broken spring repairs. I should be very interested to know of it's whereabouts and, with no questions asked, possibly re-acquiring it assuming, naturally, that it is not like firewood. I'm not that sentimental...
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