yep, Chet...there were several instruments made that way...we have some serious collectors around here who used to do a 'weird instruments' workshop every few years, and I have seen those kind of things lined up on stage, being demonstrated! They may, indeed, have helped amplify the sound in their day, but they also sure did distort it...but some of the distortions had their own quaint way of being 'interesting', just as the early pedal steel guitars were fascinatingly 'different'.