I wish to express my utter appallment (appallhood? appallheit?)
that James' old Burton could possibly approach the quality of his
recent ZuckerSingle.

Still - once, a couple of lifetimes ago (I've mentioned this before)
I visited in Eugene an instrument by Burton himself, seemingly
early in his harpsichord-making career, with 2x8' and two sets
of jacks; one set of his own black familiars, and one set of
Hubbard white jacks. I took this to have been something from
before he began tinkering with the Hubbard design, and thus an
instrument which might well have been built in the hHubbard shop
as an exemplar.

This beast (I failed to record any date or serial number) was
scarcely playing; the strings were completely corroded, the jacks
sticking in their guides, the keys in some disarray. I thought
at the time that I'd really like to get it working; the owner,
a grad assistant to John Hamilton, thought otherwise, so the
work was never done and I never got to confirm my expectations.

Somewhere around here floats an instrument similar to Jim's,
whose builder lost the Burton jacks in a move so it got Z jacks
and guides, which is also appallingly good. But I'll never
admit it.

                                                        calhoun

in cahoots with ZHI for thirty odd years ...