Here’s a couple of pictures of a custom psaltery that I recently completed. As you can see it’s very dark. About the only time I can remember a darker colored bowed psaltery was the one made of Wenge, but even that had curly maple binding, so this may be the darkest colored one yet.

The top is curly Redwood, (with the Star of David rosette which I explained in a previous post), and the back is East Indian Rosewood. The binding and bridge are made of Gaboon Ebony, and are almost completely black. The bridge also has a brass saddle because the maximum sustain possible was sought.