COLLECTION #193: Vintage Zithers

It's Music Monday! Today's little musical collection is some of my zithers. I say some, because I have two more packed away somewhere in my garage. I was hoping I would have come across them before now, but alas, I haven't seen them. (They are there, hiding from me, playing a quiet little zither tune... if I could just hear them!)

The red zither, which I adore, was a gift from my friend Tom back in the early '70s. He knew I played the autoharp, and he was always hoping I would learn to play the zither, but I never did manage to learn. But it always looked so cute, sitting on my shelves, just being, well, red!  You can see it in my photo below, which was taken in my college apartment room in 1974.

The other two are just old, and are probably meant as child's playthings. The one on the right is one of my two Junior Third Man Zithers. A famous movie called The Third Man was released in 1949. The theme song was a zither solo by Anton Karas. The song became a number one Billboard hit, and stayed on top of the charts for many weeks. My other Third Man zither is one of the MIA zithers. It has the label on it that this one is missing.  Here's a clip of the film's opening credits with the  famous song.


The third zither is just a mess..... old, cracked, damaged, missing strings. It's a shadow of it's former self, but I just can't bear to part with it. It has a label inside, but is so damaged, I can't really read it.

Thanks for looking!