The best place to buy strings in Casper, WY is the local pawnshop. I stopped in to get some, yesterday, and asked if they had any unusual instruments. At first they said no, then one remembered a "hippie windchime-type thingy" in the back, but said corporate wouldn't let them sell it, so I wandered into the music room and looked around, instead.
First off I noticed they had a small xylophone, about 36" long with traveling case. Sounded really nice, clear, then I noticed their price tag, over $200.00 and decided I didn't need something to "chime" on.
Looking around a bit more, I found some cheapo, little guitars which I thought were baritone ukes until I noticed they had six-strings. They were really cute and didn't sound half-bad, to a non-guitar-trained ear. Nice size and so inexpensive ($39.00) I am thinking they might make great birthday pressies for the twin grandsons.
As I was looking, the manager came in and said sure they could sell the hippie thingy, so they went in back and dragged it out for me. Let's see if I can describe it well enough for some opinions. It looked like some art deco hanging lamp, with tubular bell-like tubes, flat-black in colour, encircled around a base tube. Each tube was capped and had a sound hole. Glued onto the front of each tube was a silver-plate, like a xylophone plate, but the pawnshop guys called them "tuning forks" but whadda they know!? Hate to see what they eat with, if they think those are forks! Anyway, there was also a small cloth-covered mallet with which to strike the metal plates. It sounded BEAUTIFUL. I wanted to bring it home. Only thing is they wanted $175.00 for it! I know, ya never pay what they ask, but I was thinking more like $25-50. I don't think I'd ever get them that low, although one of the employees did say they'd had it in back for a long time.
Anyway, my questions are what do you think of the prices on the xylophone and the hippie thing (what DO you call it?) and how hard would it be to make my own hippie thingy? I loved the tones of it!