I needed a knockaround string instrument to keep me company during a brief 2-month stint in Savannah, something playable but cheap enough I can leave it behind when I depart for an overseas job.
While pondering ideas, I found out that cheap Chinese-made PR cuatros are as low as $89 on eBay, sometimes lower if they're cosmetic seconds. I bought one under the "Harmonia" brand, and while not stellar, I certainly feel I got my money's worth and that this merits consideration for others needing a beater cittern for camping, travel, first "cittern" for poor guitar/mando players branching out, etc.
The PR cuatro (not to be confused with other instruments of same name) is five doubled courses, BEADG, with the B and E being octaved. At first I figured I'd grown out of my past "got to make everything mando-like" period, so just played it in trad tuning, but on a whim started messing around and found out that that I can tune it down to ADADG pretty easily. The bass A is a bit looser than I'd like, the bass D tolerable, and though I don't want to risk strings I could probably get an A on the top too (definitely if I replace the .011 with .010). So with slight tweaking I could get ADADA if I wanted.
(google images pic of a guy playing one, for context and scale)
It's a cute instrument, rather bigger than a mando, maybe the size of a half-size guitar. And I'll admit its unusual shape was a factor, to get the "huh, that's different" response. The $89 one needs decent strings, and I'm going to check the action and see if I can't take some needle files and fix it a bit, but other than that not bad. It's a little heavy, better overbuilt than under, and a little muted though I'll see how the better strings sound.
Overall, if you're looking for a cheap CBOM-ish instrument as a knockaround, I can definitely recommend a cheap Chinese Puerto Rican cuatro as an option, particularly if you're flexible about tuning.
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