Dàn tranh (seventeen-stringed box zither), made in Hồ Chí Minh City (Saigon), circa 1994, possibly by PHÙNG – ĐINH. The underside of the vaulted wooden soundboard with a printed paper label: ‘TIEM DON/PHÙNG – ĐINH/120 Lê Thi Hong Gam – Q. 1 TP. Ho Chí Minh/…UYÊN BÁN và SUA CHU’A CÁC THÚ’ ĐÒN’, with a depiction of a lyre and a guitar. 17 wire strings. Each string is attached to a rolled slip of paper beneath the soundboard, and passes across the soundboard over an individual bridge to a tuning peg fixed into the soundboard. Two silk strings for pairs of red and yellow silk tassels are threaded through holes in the bridges. The ends and sides of the box are of varnished wood and are inlaid with phoenixes, dragons, and scenes of farming, fishing and processions in mother-of-pearl. The soundboard is of plain, unvarnished wood with seven lozenge-shaped soundholes, and seven oval soundholes encircling two quadrilateral soundholes. The wooden base with one rectangular and one semicircular soundhole. The box stands on two incurved wooden feet at the widest end.
