Bushman Eastmansong

It has been one of those days on eBay when a couple nice Ukuleles came up with a real bargain buy it now price. They had only been listed for a couple of hours but at the price they were going for how could I not hit the button? Certainly not in the case of this Bushman Jenny Baritone with a Florentine cutaway. I believe this model is discontinued now and when you do see them, (and that's very rarely in the UK), they go for serious money. Well this one came up for a very, VERY reasonable buy it now price, the down side was it was listed as collection only and was going to be a couple of hours drive either way to collect it. At that price and at that rarety it was worth it though so I hit the button and wrote to the seller asking for directions. He phoned me straight back to give me directions but said there was a small error with the listing and he was quite happy to post it. Great, I'm quite happy to get it posted to me and save myself the long drive. And I'll be very happy to have it in Ukulele Corner.

Now it's here and it's not a Jenny?! It looked like a Jenny in the pictures; same reddish mahogany, same gloss finish etc. but the label in the soundhole tells me its a Bushman "Eastmansong" Ukulele made, well finished on the 3 of July 2006. It is very nicely made, though when I took the three strings it came with off, the nut fell off too! (I have glued it back on and restring it with a set of Clifford Essex strings). The one really glaring QC issue with it is the tuners, (which are closed and do work nicely and smoothly as tuners), are spectacularly haphazard in their alignment with the sides of the headstock. Not one is a right angle and no two are at the same angle either so you can't see any design influence that could have cause this? There are no extra holes for the tuner fixing screws so clearly it was made like this, (and because I would have to make new holes to correct it and I don't want to make new holes I am going to leave it) .

It's origins are certainly curious; in looking Eastmansong up as a Bushman brand I have found that is appears to be a separate distributor? I have seen it both in conjunction with Bushman, (on other Ukuleles as well as mine), and as a brand in its own right; so no Bushman on the headstock, (but no Easmansong on the headstock either), just an Eastmansong sound hole label. Easmansong appears to be, (or have been - I'm not sure if they are still going?) a European, possibly Swiss distributor. My guess it that the same factory in China made Ukuleles for both companies and whether by accident or planned, (Bushman is a U.S. company and only sell mail order in Europe or through small European distributors), supplied this Bushman branded Baritone to Eastmansong.