It sounds like some sort of zither--these novelty instruments, and there were many of them, tended to be sold by traveling salesmen of the "Professor Harold Hill" variety--either door to door, or as those pitchmen at the carnival do--the enphasis was on the fact that they were a new, technically advanced instrument, and easy to play--

So simple that the dullest child, in only a few minutes, and without lessons, will be able to heart rending tunes from the classical masters--

Professional musicians are up in arms!! These instruments may be so easily mastered that players may accomplish, in minutes, what they have labored for years to achieve. Sale of these instruments has been prohibited in the European countries for exactly this reason--The supply of these instruments is strictly limited--so get them while they are still available--

Of course the salesman could play wonderful things on it(or something that looked very much like it) but once it was home and out of the box, these instruments never got very much use--

For one thing, they almost never sounded good--for another, they were shoddily made--but by the time you realized it, the salesman was gone, unless he had fallen in love with the librarian--