garry
307 posts
Dec 21, 2012
5:59 PM
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i buy online, and i mostly buy reedplates these days, which saves me ~ 33% of the cost of a whole harp.
i wish you could buy single reedplates, vs. a set of 2. that'd cut that cost almost in half, since my harps mostly fail on the 4B reed.
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nacoran
6322 posts
Dec 21, 2012
8:21 PM
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Superbee, I'm not so sure about the local guys knowing the market. My shop didn't know the names of any harp companies other than Hohner and Lee Oskar, and Guitar Center keeps pushing the Green Bullet. The Hohner display case is so disused that there is a layer of dust over everything at at least two of shops, and only one of the shops knew about minor tunings. I tried to encourage them by playing them something on my Seydel, but it's a LLF and it had a jammed 1 reed, so I don't think I sold them on it. I was really trying to impress her too! Ladies who know music, even if they don't know harp so well... oh well. Nothing worse than leaving them thinking you don't know how to handle your instrument.
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Nate
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SuperBee
746 posts
Dec 22, 2012
3:10 PM
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Nate, I don't mean they know about harmonica, just about what sells and what to carry in stock
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Aussiesucker
1223 posts
Dec 22, 2012
6:52 PM
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I travel around Oz & amongst my favourite shops are the small music stores in most towns. Generally the range of harps is almost non existent but a few Hohners can generally be found usually Blues Harps & cheapies like the Silver Star. In the larger towns the choice is generally not much better ie bigger stock but same stuff.
About 10 mins from where I live there is a shop that is an exception. A small but well stocked music store that carries not only Hohner but a range of Lee Oskar & Suzuki harps. With Lee Oskar their service is very prompt & prices good.
I have also dealt with Mandoharp an Oz based online shop that carries an extensive stock of every harp manufacturer. I'm not a lover of Seydel harps but I needed a couple of configurable high keyed harps & Mandoharp ordered them for me from Seydel & I had them in a week & at a good price. They were Seydel Blues Sessions & personally I find them a horrible harp but as they were in keys that only get used rarely it didn't matter.
Some few years back it was worthwhile to shop online from the US & on price comparison of harps alone there is still today a lot of difference. But the cost of postage is such that it is no longer worth the hassle for just a few harps.
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HARPOLDIE’S YOUTUBE
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Dickie
3 posts
Dec 25, 2012
12:17 PM
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Harmonica players tend to be frugal, in some cases this is one reason why we got into the instrument in the first place, it is cheap and portable. We as a group seem to always fall back to the old "I remember when Marine Bands were $X, now they are $XX."
Question: What hasn't gone up in the last 5, 10, or 15 years? Does a guitarist complain that a Fender American Standard Strat costs $1200 now and was only $900 just a couple years ago? Not that I hear. German made Hohner harmonicas are still hand made in Germany, that means they have to pay people to assemble and tune them by hand, should those lovely people still get paid what they were paid 5, 10, or 15 years ago? I don't think that would be fair. The harmonicas are made out of steel, brass, and sometimes aluminum or other metals, anyone that knows the first thing about manufacturing can tell you that the cost of these metals has skyrocketed in recent years because demand is so great. China is buying metals by the ton to keep up with their factory demands(largely driven by United States demand). Furthermore, the cost of shipping on a big boat from Germany to the United States has risen sharply due to the cost of fuel. This is something I think we all can agree on, gas is much more expensive now than it was 5, 10, or 15 years ago. So........put it all together and you have a harp that, in order to still be manufactured in the same high quality way, and arrive to your local store in a reasonable timeframe, must cost more. There simply is no way to offer quality instruments such as these for the prices of 5, 10, or 15 years ago. Unless you have a DeLorean that runs at 1.21 gigawatts.
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groyster1
2106 posts
Dec 25, 2012
2:07 PM
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dont abuse them and make them last by alternating them....easy for me to say tho....I own about 90....
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barbequebob
2151 posts
Dec 26, 2012
8:20 AM
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Rod Piazza said many years ago in an interview for the now defunct Mississippi Saxophone harmonica newsletter that "harp players are either too broke or too cheap to get the right s**t."
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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Frank
1711 posts
Dec 26, 2012
8:28 AM
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Plus they gotta spend more time with the harp in their hand then their ding a ling...
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JD Hoskins
351 posts
Dec 26, 2012
11:43 AM
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If I compare what I made with the cost of a Marine Band ($2.25) when I started working full time, with today it's pretty close to the same. But I've had 40+ years at being fairly successful in my chosen field.
I'm not sure how it all stacks up agaist the average wage in 1969 vs cost of MB and average wage today vs cost of a MB. I'm just guessing the MB costs about double.
Last Edited by on Dec 27, 2012 8:02 PM
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shadoe42
239 posts
Dec 26, 2012
1:18 PM
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I try to buy as much music gear as I can from my local preferred shop. Even though that will often end up costing me a bit more. As long as it is not a LOT more I am okay. But my shop also offers a rising discount on harps. the more you buy the bigger the discount. Once you hit three or more you are paying just a touch more than online and i get to put them in my impatient little paws right then :)
Plus that shop lets you come in and play all day every day if you want and will never say a word to you other than offer to help. They never tell you to stop playing or to buy something or leave. And they are helpful and knowledgeable so I tend to consider it the higher price as a fee for keeping that around and handy :)
With that being said I do go online for bigger purchases when I just cannot get it to a price I need to at the shop. Or to things they do not handle at all like music software. The only store in town that deal in any computer music gear is guitar center...ugh.
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Dr. Rev. Mr. Cheeks Miller
My Electronic Music World
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STME58
341 posts
Dec 27, 2012
12:11 AM
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I found an inflation calcualtor that uses the Consumer Price index to take a price in the past and convert it to current dollars.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
According to thie calculator, $2.25 in 1969 would be $14.11 today.So in constant dollars the price of Marine Band has gone up between double and triple since 1969. Is it a better product today? If not, what has happened that it commands the extra price? More harp players chasing fewer harmonicas?
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Kingley
2060 posts
Dec 27, 2012
1:04 AM
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STME58 -The Hohner harmonicas of today are a far better produt than in the late 1980's and 1990's. However I suspect that if you used that same inflation calculator to work out the cost of things like bread, milk, fuel, clothes, etc, or pretty much anything in fact, that you'd find most things have increased likewise. A lot of the price rise is down to economics and availability of materials and consumer requirements (supply and demand). Much of it though (in most cases the biggest part of it in my opinion) is down to the greed of Directors and Shareholders. They often demand to see an increase in their personal profits year on year. Which of course drives prices up.
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