Thanks, Don and Jim, I'll pass your comments on.
This thread is going down like a solid submarine. Perhaps I should add that my pal makes very few dulcimers nowadays, and only a couple have made their way to the US in private hands. As a luthier, he mostly sub-contracts to a guitar maker, and he is mostly interested in the esoteric and unusual. You should see his Hurdy-Gurdy.

I've never bothered to count the strings on an Esoteric, before anyone asks.