And now here's something we hope you'll _really_ like...

Okay, I’ve been a professional musician for over 15 years, and I didn’t think there was anything left to surprise me. But check this out: I ordered some new bass strings from Elderly Instruments last week. I’ve never ordered from Elderly before, even though I knew that the company existed. But I wanted a set of the black nylon Tru-Bass Rotosound strings, and they were the only place in the United States that carried them that wasn’t a mass-market retailer (e.g. Musician’s Friend and their ilk; I never buy from those sorts of companies if I can find someone else that has the product I’m looking for.) What I didn’t know, and didn’t discover from Elderly’s… well… elderly web site, is that this company is serious business.

To wit: a rather largish color catalog came with the order. This catalog is actually significantly bigger than the 30-odd Musician’s Friend catalogs I get every year. It’s as big as any four of them put together, and it is chock-fucking-full of weird shit. They have a $130 professional concert-grade penny whistle. They have several harmonicas that cost multi-hundreds of dollars. But where Elderly comes out on top, far ahead of any other retailer I’m aware of, is ukuleles. Now, I was born in Hawaii (Army brat, doncha know…) so the uke has a special place in my heart. Not special enough that I ever devoted more than, say, two thought cycles to its existence, but special inasmuch as it’s from Hawaii, and I’m from Hawaii, and that’s kind of cool.

If you click that link above, you’ll be whisked away to Ukulele Heaven. Elderly actually has, in stock (free shipping for orders over $99) one hundred and eight different NEW ukuleles. Never mind their vintage used models. I had no idea there was a market for vintage ukes, but come to find out, Elderly has a 40s Martin 3-M soprano for a mind-bending $3200. Or take the 1929 National resonator ukulele for the skull-crushing sum of $3950. Now, I realize those are US dollars, and what with the Chinese dumping all their t-bills, they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, but even so, that’s a lot of coin for a four-stringed instrument not made by Stradivarius.

So, do yourself a favor and order the Elderly Instruments paper catalog. It is full to the brim with strange instruments. Dulcimers, harps, concertinas, autoharps, some really stellar guitars, and, of course, ukuleles.