sweet vintage pipa pix!

[coyootie]

greetings all. I'm a luthier/ethnomusicologist, just got this pipa. it looks like the old style with fewer frets, VERY heavy.I reglued the pegbox and will do the nut and upper ivory frets ( all the upper parts and bridge are ivory). this is being done correctly with hide glue---- oh mercy how many times have i seen instruments savaged by the unknowing with epoxies etc.
it is in great shape, a little loss to the lacquer on the back ( why anyone would put opaque black lacquer on such gorgeous rosewood escapes me, unless it is considere best for preserving from cracks?). the marquetry strip along the edge of the soundboard is a lovely detail I haven't seen much.
somebody had bored a hole through the pegbox/ neck joint behind the first peg and there was a crudely whittled violin peg stuck through that. I rebored this hole and fitted a rosewood pin in it, it will add some reinforcement, but can be removed as i left that unglued.
A request here for a translation of the inscribed panel! my wife reads some Chinese from having lived in Taiwan 35 years ago but can't quite get all of it.Any other ideas on maker or history, much appreciated.
I'll have strings soon and it looks like this should be fully playable,no warpage in the instrument and a straightedge shows all the frets are fine.

Attachments:

[davidmdahl]

Welcome to the forum, coyootie, and congrats on the pipa. To post pics on the forum, just upload them to another site that will host files accessible to the public. Then post the links in a message to this forum with html tags:

{IMG}http://www.hostedphotos.com/myphoto.jpg{/IMG}

Use square brackets [] instead of curley brackets {} to make the above work properly.

Best wishes,

David

[oltrelogo]

Hello welcome here and congrats for your pipa.

[xindi]

Shame the OP has vanished from the pipa section

That's an earlier pipa alright - and from the head carving and ivory frets, it wasn't cheap to make either. It has fewer frets, and might be one of those oddly chinese tempered scale ones but it oozes quality.

The modern pipas have 30 frets for chromatic scales - yours precedes this but is not as old as the 14 fretted pipas with the non-sickle head. If your glueing method worked, that would be a bonus, particularly for the sickle shaped neck tension.

[xindi]

Here's another interesting vintage one for sale - but modern chromatic this time:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/230786043580?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Don't know the seller, but it looks like a great entry pipa - the frets are all aligned to the right too - don't see that in dirt cheap ones. Quite a bargain for anyone in the USA.

[xindi]

Congratulations to the buyer (whoever it was) - what a steal!

Here's another one: 'Pre-cultural revolution'. I supposed that is more attractive than saying: 'from your dad's generation' in the swinging 60's', and more accurate, since mostly axes were swinging then.



The price is outrageous. No - that's the name of the seller lol.

[xindi]

Here's an authentic vintage pipa from a famous xiao player's site:



Notice it only has 14 frets - definitely not mean scale nor any of the western temperaments, and the horizontal playing position.