That’s a link to the Vintage Guitar Forum, where someone posted a thread calling for the attention of John Thomas, a guitar scholar and collector of old-time harp guitars - which are what they sound like: a guitar with a bunch of harp-ish strings that extend above and/or below the normal six strings of a guitar.
But - that link shows this hilarious monstrosity: a Gibson Explorer harp guitar that he found at Lark St. Music in New Jersey. Someone clearly had too much time on their hands
I don’t see any frets on it, and it looks like it would be tough to finger the notes fretlessly, as it were. Maybe it’s meant to be played like a harp, open strings only, and is tuned accordingly.
I sort of have to admire the effort that went into building that sucker, presuming it works. Think about constructing the pickup bobbins and then winding them.
Still, the whole thing is anything but a good idea for a playable instrument. It’s only value is that of a curiosity.
I saw him with a quartet called the I-90 Collective that played mostly baroque and early classical. The instrument is called a theorbo. It’s kind of a lute with additional, closely-tuned bass strings that are only played open. I gather it peaked in popularity a few hundred years ago, and is pretty darn rare these days.
