From Russia, With Strings Attached

by C.F. Casey

Originally published in American Luthier #75, 2003 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Seven, 2015



Last year my wife and I received an invitation from some new friends to visit at their place about an hour’s drive from us. David Neufeld had a violin he wanted me to check over, as he was thinking about getting back into playing it. As it turned out, the fiddle was in good shape and didn’t need my attentions. However, when I walked into their house for the first time, I spotted something hanging on the wall that made my jaw drop: an obviously old guitar with tuners all on one side. Naturally I rushed over for a closer look, and what I saw piqued my interest even more. For one thing, it was a 7-stringer. For another, the neck was attached to the body with a screw, which could be tightened or loosened with a clock key.

The guitar belongs to Maggie Andres, David’s partner, and had belonged to her grandmother, who was of Russian Mennonite stock. Sometime in the ’60s, while clearing up his mother’s estate, Maggie’s father had found the guitar in pieces, lying behind a door where it had been discarded by his brothers and sisters. He kept it and put it back together.