I've just inherited the CD and cassette collection of Pav Verity, who was maybe the UK's most fanatical rebetica buff. There are several pictures of the cümbüş being played, but I haven't heard it on any track yet. Timing might have been bad. They were invented just before the population exchanges, and rebetis in Greece were skunt and marginalized, wouldn't often have had the means to import new instruments from Turkey.

I've also got a baglamas of Pav's. Fun little thing. I am being thoroughly unauthentic and playing it with a cümbüş pick. I just don't see the point of tensing myself up and raising my blood pressure by gripping a triangular pick like grim death.

BTW "Ta zilliarika sou matia" is a fantastic cümbüş tune.