1950 Nagoya Harp black, Near Mint, $495.00

Just when you thought it was safe……….yet another most unusual, what-were-they-smoking, stringed instrument, this time from just-post-Occupied Japan, where it was unlikely that they were smoking anything. We have here a gen-you-wine Nagoya Harp; mint condition, never played, stunningly black lacquered with a beautiful, hand-painted scene of --- what else would you expect --- Mt. Fuji, in truly appropriate colors, all still bright after nearly seventy years. Has five strings (original!), and a “keyboard” that could only have been copied from, or maybe actually taken from, a 1930s Underwood typewriter. I got it over forty years ago, never did anything with it, put it away, just recently took it out and……it’s still in tune. I am not kidding. Comes with original instruction book, in English, with such bromides as…… “The operation of the instrument performs of pressing key notes…… The more thus gained the better thus sounds could be trained". Etc. MacArthur was doing his best after WW II with getting Japan back on its economic feet after Truman fired him from pressing ahead with other, um, endeavors, and the world definitely benefitted from the industries that were revived; I just don’t know who could possibly have thought up this one. Original tuning wrench not present, but one has graciously been provided by the seemingly bottomless chasm of ephemera in our own workshop. Yours, in living color, as is, for only $495