I offered to get Philip a really nice gift since I've got a bit of money now. After much coaxing, he's decided he would really like a shamisen. A shamisen / sanshin is a traditional Japanese stringed instrument, commonly played using a very wide plectrum-related thing called a bachi.

The shamisen is an incrediably disgusting instrument. The best pegs are usually ivory or horn, although sometimes they settle for ebony wood. The best skins to use are cat skins. Only skin from the stomach area of female cats is good enough. The second best sound is achieved from dog skins. And then sometimes you get instruments with cat skin on the top and dog skin on the bottom. The sanshin variety frequently uses snakeskin. And the best bachi have tortoise shell overlays. At least the strings are made from silk. But that said, the shamisen strings only hold a tuning for a minute. So the player has to constantly retune the instrument on the fly while playing.

Luckily they do make shamisen with synthetic skins, which are both cheaper and more durable than cat/dog/snake skins. But in the search for a more eco-friendly shamisen, it is a bit disturbing to come across Japanese auctions for shamisen that use more traditional materials. Ivory pegs and puppy skins.