Tone balls

Elaine and Ben and I spent the afternoon yesterday at Elderly Instruments in Lansing, Michigan. Housed in a former Odd Fellows building, Elderly is quite a store.

Downstairs, next to the repair desk, there is a curious exhibit titled “Tone Balls,” a collection of the little bundles of dust, hair, lint, and whatever that form inside guitars. The term tone ball is the work of an unidentified Elderly employee. Here, from The Fretboard Journal, is a 2006 article about tone balls, with scary-big photographs.

Elaine has already written about these things, and I see that she too found the Fretboard Journal piece. The photograph above is hers.

[Gasoline to Lansing and back: about $30. Getting your son an instrument: priceless.]