Thank you for hosting this wonderful discussion. My Jeffrey was #814, purchased for about $78 around 1966. My initial inquiry was answered with a letter containing a glossy photograph that I gazed at for hours on end before mine arrived.

Sandy and Caroline Paton suggested using TV lead-in wire (the old flat kind) with the copper cut back for a dulcimer pick. That was great, since my father was a TV repairman and we had an unending supply.

My dulcimer attended several Newport Folk Festivals: at one, I had shinnied up a telephone pole to get a better view of someone, and when I came off, I landed on the pegbox. No damage. I did manage to split the soundboard in a couple of places in later encounters.

The wooden tuning pegs were sweet: I performed with this instrument often and changing modes was instantaneous. My pegbox had a modest scroll: the openings were diamond, and the body wood was walnut.

About twenty-five years ago I passed the instrument on to a friend, where I hope it entered a new life. I suspect I could pick up one of these today, with a piece of lead-in wire and a squared-off 20d nail, and dive right in: "Oh, I once loved and courted, a most fair . . . "