❌SOLD❌ Lawrence Nyberg Cittern Black Walnut and Redwood, 2018

Here we have a Lawrence Nyberg cittern with sound port, built during January 2018 at the Nyberg shop on spectacularly beautiful Hornby Island, British Columbia.   New, this Nyberg Cittern would be around $4600. 

This lovely Lawrence Nyberg Cittern pairs a Redwood top and Black Walnut for the sides, back, and back strap (an extra layer on the back of the head). The neck is Mahogany, with Ebony used for the fingerboard and its binding, bridge, and the head plate. A K&K pickup is installed and connected to and end pin jack. Unusually for an instrument of this type, a steel string guitar-style ebony pin bridge is used rather than a floating bridge with an additional tailpiece.

Breaking with tradition, a sound port is also installed to the upper bass side.

For hardware, a custom Rubner five-per-side set of strip tuners is installed, and a K&K

This Nyberg cittern is label-dated to January 2018, and the instrument is in great condition with only very light wear.

This Nyberg Cittern comes with its original arched top hard shell case, originally intended for a tenor banjo. 

Nyberg studied under Michael Dunn for over two years, beginning around 1987, and worked at the Larrivee shop in Vancouver for two years. At that point he opened an independent lutherie shop in Vancouver and ran it for six years before moving to Hornby Island. His work, as seen in this Nyberg Cittern, is very good, and it is clear that he has an excellent understanding of how and why instruments work.

The cittern dates to the Renaissance era, one of the first instruments to be built for metal strings, is a descendant of the citole and is related to the English Guitar and German waldzither. Like many other instruments, including the Viele la Roux or Hurdy Gurdy, the rise of other instruments – the banjo, ukulele, mandolin and guitar (and for the Hurdy Gurdy, brass Jazz instruments) removed a lot of interest. The rising popularity of ethnic genres like Celtic music has renewed interest in the Cittern and Irish Bouzouki.