Several years ago, I purchased a Schwarzer zither off of eBay. I was pleasantly surprised when I received it, although it had a crack all the way down the body of the instrument. I sent the instrument's serial number and a picture of the label to Marc Houseman, the director of the Washington Historical Society Museum in Washington, Missouri. The museum features an exhibit by the famed Missouri zither maker, Franz Schwarzer. Marc said that it was a very old Schwarzer model, probably dating some time between the late 1860's and early 1880's. I had initially purchased it, because it looked like the zither used by my ancestor Louis Maurath (whose picture and story you can see at http://www.zither.us). But, it also looked like the zither used by the Civil War soldier, whose picture is also at this website. Since I'm helping to create the Missouri Civil War Museum here at Jefferson Barracks (http://www.mcwm.org), I decided to donate the zither to the museum. I took it to Mr. Sasha Radicic, a guitar and zither luthier specialist here in St. Louis (http://www.radicic-guitar-zither.com) and he made it look like new. He was also able to completely repair and hide the surface crack on the zither. He added strings and made the old thing playable, and the sound from it is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend Sasha to anyone who might need work on any stringed instrument. Sasha is also a master instrument maker and builder of new instruments. One will be able to view the zither that Sasha repaired when the Missouri Civil War Museum opens in the latter half of 2011.