pre 1900 bohm style waldzither mandola?

[Eclectic1]

This was given to me a birthday gift. He found it in a little store in Germany in the 80s and was told it was dates pre 1900. He said the bridge was crystal, which I have not heard of and it was replaced w glass, its broken now but i am having it put back together. It has a single bass string and all others are double. Anyone know anything about this kind of instrument ?

[Seter]

That is a neat birthday present. There are a few waldzither owners/players here, hopefully they can chime in soon.

[HonketyHank]

Here is the entrance to the Böhm rabbit-hole: http://boehm-waldzither-page.webnode.com/ . Have fun.

[Bruce Clausen]

Nice site! Thanks for that, Hank. And the link to the "Cittern page of the Leipzig University Museum..." gets you to a terrific source of information (in German) on all types of cittern, with photos, tunings, builder information, etc. Not to mention zithers and guitars.

[Eclectic1]

Here is the entrance to the Böhm rabbit-hole: http://boehm-waldzither-page.webnode.com/ . Have fun.

Thanks for that. I think mine is a copy...if they made copies in the late 1800s becaue there doesn’t seem to be a label in it. The person who is reviving it is making strings.

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks for that. I think mine is a copy...if they made copies in the late 1800s becaue there doesn’t seem to be a label in it. The person who is reviving it is making strings.

Lots of luthiers made waldzithers in the late 19th/early 20th century. Boehm were the ones who revived the fortunes of this near-defunct Thuringian folk instrument, and their design was a huge commercial success. They were the ones who introduced the peculiar headstock with the key-turned Preston tuners and double loop strings -- that was just a gimmick with no musical or historical justification and it made restringing and retuning unnecessarily difficult. The Boehm ones are very nice instruments, though!

Other luthiers started making waldzithers in large volumes in the wake of Boehm's success, mainly in Markneukirchen, Saxony. Some of them copied the cumbersome tuners, and others used more conventional headstocks, which I personally prefer (my two waldzithers are of this type). Yours is one of these Markneukirchen instruments -- that scratchplate is not a Boehm design. As for date, more likely post-1900 than pre-1900, but hard to say. The glass bridge is original -- in this context "crystal" is just a fancy way of saying "glass". Most players swap the glass bridge for a wooden bridge which is easier to set up and adjust. Your bridge looks broken, so you may want to change it.

Martin

[tonydxn]

More information here http://www.mandolinluthier.com/waldzither-page.htm including a string winder to make loops on the other end of the strings. Also the traditional tunings, which are different from mandolin tunings. They were usually tuned to an open chord. With appropriate strings you can tune it like a mandola though.

Böhm was the market leader in Waldzithers. Just as many Italian makers copied de Meglio's design, many Waldzither makers copied Böhm's (including the quirky Preston tuners). The OP's instrument looks like the kind of Böhm copy made by Plückthun. I believe the 'scratchplate' is actually only a decal, and may have been used by other makers. The original bridges were glass. Unlikely to date back to 1900. 1920's or 30's would be more like it.

I believe the Waldzither enthusiasts round here hang out in the CBOM section.

[HonketyHank]

I made this video in January 2018 to introduce my fellow Newbies to my newly acquired Böhm.
https://youtu.be/Bu7jxxHkfIY

I am the only person I have ever heard of receiving a waldzither for Christmas last year.

[Marty Jacobson]

Looks like a Pluckthorn to me. It's not pre 1900, probably from the 1920's or 30's.

[Norbert Feinendegen]

This is no doubt a "Plückthun" type Waldzither from the 1930s or early 1940s. Martina Rosenberger has done some superb research about these instruments in her (German) "Waldzither Puzzle Vol. 1".
The instruments were built in the area of Markneukirchen and were sold in Westfalen and the Ruhr Area by the salesmen Hermann Plückthun, Robert Epe (and a few by Otto Herold). Hermann Plückthun (born 1895 in Essen, Germany) and Robert Epe had founded a mutual company in 1932, but later split the areas between them, Plückthun more to the East, and Epe more to the West.
As Martin said, the Preston style tuners were adapted to the Waldzither by C. H. Boehm (Hamburg) in 1897, together with other innovations, which resulted in a modern, updated version of the old Thuringian Waldzither (Boehm also started using a glass bridge on his waldzithers). To my knowledge (which is also the opinion of Prof. Andreas Michel, who provides the Cittern site of the Leipzig University Museum), Boehm has to be given credit for inventing the modern 20th Century Waldzither almost solely on his own. The idea (and design) was taken over only several years later in the rest of Germany, somewhere around 1st World War.

[Eclectic1]

Wow ! These responses are stunning. Thank you all for this invaluable information. We were all guessing. So this instrument has come back from the shop. As suggested we replaced the broken glass bridge with a wooden one. Not sure about these strings. He made them from maybe guitar strings ... and now I’m going to have to find a key so I can tune it. The top is pretty alive and i think it will sound good f I can tune it. I will be passing all this on to my friend who purchased it in Germany. Again thanks to all

[tonydxn]

... and now I’m going to have to find a key so I can tune it. l

You can use a clock key of the appropriate size. Easy to find.

[Norbert Feinendegen]

For tuning, you can also use a radiator bleeding key like this one:



https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076YWTJ5Z

They are slightly bigger than the original keys but work quite well.

And this video by John Maddock shows two methods you can use to wind the strings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIP5rzTcQy8