Actually, although this sitar looks like a cheap tourist grade P.O.S., it's actually a rare find. I did some research - It was made (as the ad states) in 1903 by the Mongoloid Facade Sharma company. I hope no one on the Forum gets offended if I bid against them on this sitar, but I REALLY want this instrument.
yeah, thats funny, yesterday, when I saw it, I also thought it was just a cheap-o sitar (like the one I have), and that the person selling it must hve been bending the truth quite a bit!.
Very interesting!
Well I have to laugh at whoever bid on the silly thing. My second sitar was identical to that, it is basically a Bina Brand instrument from the mid to late 60s, not very impressive at all. Where the seller got all the 1903 junk is really strange. It you look at the style and the color it is so easy to tell that it is from the 60s or 70s. Another clue is the red fishing line used to tie the fret, that was a late 60s trend, but the stuff ended up being really brittle, and thats probably why all the frets are gone. I guess anybody could take a crappy sitar and put a name brand or a date on it, and someone out there actually will believe it. . . :-\
Beenkar Ted Ceplina
Well thats the funny thing, my Bina sitar was initially crapy, but with a few changes it sounded outstanding. It was missing a lot of pegs, so at the time I ordered a set of rosebud pegs from Mid-East, and that works out perfect. I retied the frets with braided fishing line, bought 2 new elkhorn jawari, and touched up some of the finish. And it was remarkable how well the thing reacted to the slightest touch, and how well its sound projected. So they are not absolute junk, I just don't like fraudulent sellers who con innocent people.
Beenkar Ted Ceplina
So sorry - I have to outbid everybody - as there is another very strange story connected to this marvellous lute: as this is the one and only original inflatable Surbahar - the prototype Sahebdadji Khanjis riksha driver, disguised as Noduji Mollickjis sitar player, built in 1865. During the Sepoy revolt this lute came under strange cicumstances to Italy into an old Brahmin family, then to America, where the last famous exponent of that family, Pt. F. Vincent Zappaji, used it for his widely ignored album "Shut up 'n' play your Sitar". As the knowledge, how to inflate this incredible twanger, is lost nowadays, it appears to look like an ordinary shitty hippie Sitar; so some bicycle enthousiast like me should buy it to unveil the mystery - same to all the nice hm air guitars sold on e-bay.
Namaste, Ingo
Hope I didnt get too sarcastic:-) Anyway here is another inflatable darling: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2566595942&category=27598
Its not antique, but seller writes that the big om on the headstock ist the manufacturers sign and in India every builder has to have such a sign.
Ingo
