The lagerphone is a well-established bush-band instrument (along with items like the tea-chest bass) and is usually home-made. Ours isn't as fancy as this one; the usual lagerphone starts life as a stick, often a broomstick, with jingles made of beer bottle tops nailed on. Australasian tradition, at least, dictates that the tops must have come from bottles consumed by the builder.
The lagerphone is played by beating with a stick and thumping the bottom end on the floor. The stick shown here is serrated to give a rasping sound as it's drawn across the instrument.
This example has a crossbar at the top and a collection of small bells and other jingly objects which can make a wide variety of percussive effects in the hands of a virtuoso lagerphonist.
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