1890s/2018 Wildwood/Partser Cigar Box Acoustic/Electric Fiddle

My friend Rick has recently been playing with a fellow named Sumio -- a Japanese old-time fiddler -- and he wanted to give him a gift to take home across the ocean. Rick's a big fan of cigar box gear, so on Tuesday he showed-up with this box and I scrounged-around in my pile of fiddle necks and we picked one out. On Wednesday morning I threw this together willy-nilly over a couple of hours and -- surprise-surprise! -- it works just fine. The rush is because Sumio departs at the end of the week and won't be back for a year or more. Sheesh!

Please don't knock me for the slap-dash approach -- I simply didn't have time to make it beautiful. As it was, I was burning what I call my "private hours" to get it done.

It plays well, with an old-time, flatter-bridge feel and easy-playing nylon-core strings. Sound is focused on the mids and highs but it's not harsh and has relaxed tone. It has volume about the same as a 1/2 or 3/4 instrument and is good-enough to jam with one or two (quieter) players or practice on at home. Its real boon is that it has some cheap, K&K-alike piezo-disc pickups installed under the bridge feet so this thing is actually an electric instrument as well. In this capacity, it's pretty rock-on.

Sumio plays in an underarm/folk-fiddle style so I didn't need to worry about chinrests and how the body would fit up on the shoulder. I think it'd need some sort of apparatus hanging off its dowel-stick/tailpiece hanger to get that to work right.

The cigar box and bridge are newer but the rest of the fittings and neck are 1890s/1900s materials. The slap-dash cutouts near the bridge are actually for bow access and are not really meant as soundholes other than by necessity. I added the moon-shaped soundhole "up top" to begin-with before remembering that I had to add them! When time is so limited, one has to just get it done and evolve the design as it goes.

The pegs at the headstock are old banjo friction pegs with ivoroid buttons.

The decorative tailpiece is off of an 1890s fiddle that'd been painted metallic green by who-knows-who.

I included the Totoro Park sticker just to make Sumio chuckle when he turned it over. I would not blame him if he yanked it off as soon as he's home! It's a bit like having Mickey Mouse on the back of your box-fiddle.

Rick snagged a shot of the new owner right after a short set at The Wild Fern in Stockbridge. I didn't realize his bowhair matched the fiddle!