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And this is a Phin, possibly from Thailand, that I got off some crazy old lady for $30 (she thought it was just a fancy kids guitar from Walmart, I didn't tell her otherwise). The fret spacing is diatonic but kind of inaccurate, which is interesting because it seems like the people who make these just fret them to sound nice to their ear, rather than following what musical theory would dictate. It had some nasty strings on it when we got it so we threw a few mandolin strings on in their place hoping they'd be similar gauge but it kind of backfired and now the strings are way too tense and it's very difficult to play / keep in tune, but I'll find some proper strings eventually. Every Phin out there has an ornate hand carved dragon headstock, it's pretty bizarre.
It's what they use to play Isaan music. The street bands in Thailand are pretty amazing. The fret spacing is odd, but think of it as an instrument where every note played on it is in a single scale. Pretty cool, no? My favorite street band video of all time, no lie, it's that amazing. btw, I've never seen an acoustic one, how the hell did some old lady get it? They only come out of Thailand.
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