Mystery Marlen

[Jon Light (deceased)]

Time to sharpen up your powers of deduction.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2540807012&category=621

At first blush this looks like a pretty guitar that has been monstrously hacked. But I'm slowly seeing a story behind it (the text obviously helps). In the pursuit of alternatives for someone with disabilities I'm sure as hell not gonna go and get sanctimonious about cosmetic issues on an inanimate object.

My speculation/guess is that there was a track system mounted on either side of the neck for the bar---the auxiliary fretboard was probably necessitated by extremely limited left arm mobility---the assembly maybe was operated like a mouse on a mouse pad. I'm still trying to fathom that tuning head but it's possibly just tuner #1 was originally removed for the other assembly and all the other tuner assignments were moved a notch.

Any further or better guesses?

[Bobby Lee]

I don't know, but somebody got a great deal!