He's not sure yet if he wants to sell it. He told me that he paid US $600 for it to a guy who was "between a hard place and a harder place" and that it's "[his] toy" -- children never touched it! He played it with six strings because of the arthritis that was developing when he got it. I've got a feeling that it's about the only thing of real value he has left and selling it would be like selling a much-loved child.

If you play you can understand.

He used to play with the "Old Time Fiddlers" -- a truly excellent local group of stringfolks who have been around a long time and try to preserve the local music -- and this tells me that he was quite good. They don't play for a fee, only for a donation -- we gave them $75 to play for an hour or so, and it was split among eight people. Since one of them drove a hundred miles to play, they don't make money out of it. (Undiscriminating, the group even includes banjos.)