You know, I've always been looking for one of these, but they don't seem to come up on eBay all that often. The other day I was right in the middle of a project and suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue, I thought "Treholipee!" and instantly ran over to eBay. Sure enough, someone was selling one for a great price (probably because it needs some love). I snapped that baby up and now I'll see if I can restore it a little bit.
If you didn't know about these strange instruments, they were marketed to surfers in the 60s. It came with a strap so you could wear it on your back and it has the huge headstock so you can dig it into the sand and it'll stay put while you are doing all your surfing stuff. Here, check out this video I made about my new one:
If you know anything about these instruments, I'd love to talk to you. And/or if you are a crafty person who might have some ideas as to how I'm going to replace that tuning paddle, I'd love to hear it!