Actually, I have two sazes ... One (the one that first lured me into Turkish music) enigmatically appeared in the attic of a friend's great aunt ... When the great aunt died, we all pitched in, helping to clean up the house for quick sale, and my friend came down out of the attic holding this bizarre, long-necked, lute-lookin' thang at arm's length, saying, "Uh, Geoff, this looks like something that YOU might want ..." Thus began the love affair ... Anyway, this saz is an older one, probably from around the mid- to late-60's ... It has a solid body, carved out of a single piece of wood, bee-yoo-tee-full inlay on the fretboard, and only six strings. The neck is long enough to support a GDA tuning.

My other saz, I bought in an open-air market in Fethiye on the Aegean coast of Turkey. I bartered the guy down from 160YTL to 100Ytl (around $70 at the time), including case and extra strings. The body is staved instead of solid, with a little bit of decorative inlay on the neck. Ted Monnich of Turku called it a 'hybrid' ... not long enough to be a baglama, but maybe too long to fit into the next category (whatever THAT is ... buzuk, maybe?). Anyway, it takes a CGD tuning. My K&K Twin Spot Classic transducer just arrived today; I've already installed it and am VERY pleased with the amplified sound ... especially through my Zoom504 Acoustic signal processor. Phil from Pickup Central helped me with this one ...

I dunno where you live, but Scott of Touch the Earth (www.touchtheearth.com) can probably get you a great deal on any quality-level of saz you want. He's a great guy, but usually very busy; if he doesn't respond to your first email, shoot him a second one ...