1949 3rd Man Zither Excellent, $400.00

From the never-ending Department of Shameless Commerce comes this prime, eye-popping example to test your knowledge of film noir and challenge your musical skills. All you movie nuts, and plenty more of you, will of course remember the haunting score, played on a zither, of Carol Reed’s 1949 production of “The Third Man”, starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. It of course has never left our subconscious after the first hearing, and has become even more embedded with subsequent neurotic viewings of the film. So…….We have here a gen-you-wine Third Man Brand Zither, in its original box, complete with playing instructions in English and Italian (it was made in Italy), and several sheets that can be slipped under the strings to assist you in playing such timeless hits as “The Blue Danube Waltz”, "O Sole Mio”, and more, assuming you can also read Italian. Or maybe German. It’s hard to tell. But the best part of all, IMHO, is the official Third Man silhouette of a secretively cloaked spy replete with furtive look, with his fedora pulled down yet, prominent everywhere on the instrument, its box, and its sheet music, and used in ads for the movie and inexorably linked with the film for decades and to this day. The label indicates association with a company called Harbert, which I tried to Google. Lessee…..April 2017: ”Harbert Management to Pay $40 Million Over Tax-Dodging Claim …”, I don’t think that’s them; Feb 2017: "Finding-authentic-music-behind-bars... documentary of Louisiana Prison Musicians. Director Ben Harbert…”, prolly not. Wiki does however talk about Anton Karas, the zither player who gave us that unforgettable music as background in the film; I can hear it in my head even now, a prime culprit for ear-wormism. So…..Amaze your friends, astound your neighbors, make all your collector cronies insanely jealous. And don’t forget the old adage, “They laughed when I sat down to play, but they cried when they saw what I played with”. And it’s still almost in tune after nearly seventy years, and in excellent condition. I guar-on-tee that no one else you know will have one of these fabulous Third Man Brand Zithers, for only $400 as is.