I'm sitting at my dining room table with more than a hundred of Sonny Terry's harps (Marine Band and Golden Melodies, mostly), playing each one and grading them for sale, donation to museums, etc. This is his entire estate, at my dining room table.
I'm going to post questions as I go, so please pay attention to this thread for the next four hours. (I need to complete my tasks in a little more than four hours from now. I won't be responding to questions--no time--but I WILL be posting questions, and reading responses.)
Every single Marine Band so far is in a cardboard case familiar to folks from the 60s-early 80s.
Question: one harp is a C#. NOT Db (although I've got one of those, too). Call me ignorant, but I've never heard of a C# MB. Are they rare? What's the story? This one has been played hard.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Sep 09, 2015 11:53 AM
That C# may be earlier than 60's and the last time I saw one of those was when I visited Hohner's old US headquarters that were located in Hicksville, LI, NY sometime in 1978 or 1979. If the paper box has that address as well as their long closed Canadian offices in Don Mills, Ontario, that would be late 70' stock. It's a good possibility that it was issued outside of the US. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Send the pretty clunkers to the museum. A museum is just a graveyard for a great playing harp, unless we can convince them they need to be taken out and played once a day like a Stradivarius. :)
I don't know with Hohner, but I know a lot more harps out of the Asian market are marketed as C# rather than Db. (My Huang Musette set is C and C#)
Did Sonny ever record anything on a low F? I've got one here.
Also, there's a harp that the executor marked E sharp, but it's actually an E flat. It was marked with a big E and a small "s". Anybody ever see that? Very sweet sound--perfect, in fact.
Also, there's a 12-hole C, a pre-1925 model. Did Sonny ever record on that? That may be the rarest harp here.
Sorry. The 12-hole is a G. SWB model, but in G, which is higher than the C. Great harp!
Also just went through a low F#.
Edited to add: actually, no: there's a 12-hole SBW in C, early 80s vintage, in an old box. And there's a Steve Baker special in G.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Sep 09, 2015 3:40 PM
One interesting point has arisen as a result of the assessment process: What is the relative value, on the one hand, of a mint harp, certifiably a part of the Sonny Terry estate (i.e., of his personal possessions when he died), that he probably didn't play or gig with, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, a harp he clearly DID play--and I tooted on a lot of those today--but that has, for example, a dead 10 blow/draw, and/or 14 and 25 octaves that are off, and/or a somewhat flatted 4 draw?
Does the mint harp have any value in excess of the value that the same 35 year old OTB Marine Band harp would have if NOT a certifiable part of Sonny's estate?
On the other hand, does the beat-ass harp that really LOOKS like what it's supposed to be--one of Sonny's gigging harps--have a measurable value, even if it's got some noticeably sub-optimal parts? As a relic, perhaps?
Luckily, my 5-hour stint this afternoon turned up many harps that fall into the he-definitely-played-it-AND-it-still-plays category.
And those harps, my friend, will be offered, at the appropriate moment, first to you folks, dedicated members of the forum. When you play "Key to the Highway" on one of those harps, you can easily dial in Sonny's sound.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Sep 09, 2015 5:43 PM
I am a complete rube in this area but still have an opinion. I would say the beat ones that are undeniably part of his history should go to a museum. There may be some academic value in knowing what he blew out, etc. Who knows. I would put the good harps up for sale because they were his, at least in some sense, and may actually be played and cherished by another generation of musicians. Who wouldn't want to put their hands on the radio, so to speak
You would be surprised how nicely an old harp that has been rode hard and hung up wet can polish up with a little TLC. Well played and lookin' gooooood are not mutually exclusive. ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Tom, the question then becomes, since these harps would have collectible value outside the harp community whether these harps are worth more restored or as is. If you buy an old harp with no provenance in a common key and model you obviously want to get it it good playing shape, but in a lot of the antique world restoring something wipes out it's value (My friend recently sanded the original finish off a teak table. I bet he took it from a $2-3K table to a $300-$400 table . Personally, for something like a harp that has provenance I'd be on the fence, especially on the road warriors in the set. I suspect museums would probably want them as is, or at least to have the option of as is.
Now, with a large batch, it might be that you'd have people coming down on both sides of the fence as they get sold. Personally, man, I'd really be on the fence. I'd restore a regular vintage harp in a heartbeat,but something really rare with a connection to a legend? (My brother's gf has a harp, I think it belonged to her granddad. I guess it's cover is even missing the screws (or brads) on one end, but she keeps flip flopping on whether she wants it restored or not. She doesn't play, so she may come down more on the collector rather than player side.
-Another thing that would be interesting... I know we've got guys on the forum who prefer one temperament over another enough that they retune their harps. Wouldn't it be fascinating, with a large sample size like this, to find out a player did their own retuning to something other than what was the default for the era? Or to see if they gapped them a particular way? Looking at one or two harps might not tell you definitively, but looking at a whole set?
I'm definitely with Georgia Blues that a museum might be a better last resting place for a harp that was a gamer, especially if it's worn out, and the players getting homes where they will be appreciated for their playability.
I think I have to come down on the side of the museum or the like, for the harps that he clearly played at gigs. Although it pains me to admit that, as I'm a huge Sonny Terry fan and would use my last dollar to buy something that he'd played.
Grading them is almost impossible because a hard core Sonny Terry fan would find the old beat up MB's worth more because those were his work horses. The old 364's are good harps, but I don't know if ever recorded with one? The SBS is more than $35. If you have proof that it was Sonny Terry's and it a SBS G harp. That sounds like a $100 harp all day. I would go through the MB's and find the harps that still play without reeds that are obviously out of tune and sell those as a set to a harp collector. Superbee has a good point. When did Sonny Terry die? Were SBS even for sale yet. Steve Baker may have made some for Sonny. Now if that's the case makes the value go up even more. A preproduction SBS made for Sonny Terry.
Last Edited by chromaticblues on Sep 10, 2015 6:31 AM
Nate. You have argued both sides of the issue very well. Sonny Terry’s harps are in a class by themselves. They have their own historical significance. To some, one of his harps would be worth owning just for the one-of-a-kind collectability. You wouldn’t go out and play a baseball game using Hank Aaron’s 714th Home Run Ball. But for others, it is a piece of living history that begs to be played.
As many of you know, I restore pre-war harps – mostly Marine Bands since they are: A) the most sought after; and B) the most plentiful. I generally don’t do anything to anything to them until the customer tells me what he wants. Nails or Screws? Original Pear Wood Comb or Custom Comb? Temperament? Is it for a collection or for gigging? It's not for me to decide what makes a given harp valuable. It's up to the customer. What is valuable to him? (or her)
Do you believe that harmonicas have a soul or a spirit? Does something rub off on a harp from whoever played it before? That’s kind of an esoteric question. But when I restore a vintage 70 or 80 year old harp, I think about the craftsman that made it and I wonder who owned it/played it and what kind of music they played. Was it a back porch or a smoke filled saloon? By the way, when you take these old harps apart you can do a little forensic analysis and get an idea of what kind of music was played on it. If the 6 – 10 chambers are stained then it was probably used for first position folk music. If the 1 – 5 chambers are heavily stained, it was likely used to play 2nd position. But I digress.
Anyway, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A Sonny Terry harp might be valuable to you for one reason and to someone else an entirely different reason.
---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Sep 10, 2015 8:09 AM
Can a harmonica have a soul? I would say that the answer is exactly as you stated.... Its in the eye of the beholder. Your kids teddy bear, your grandfather's pocket watch. These inanimate objects possess a spirit that's hard to deny.
At the end of the day, they are just small collections of metal, wood and a little dna.
If I had one... Well I'd probably blow a tune through it once a year then just keep it safe, in a display and hope that a little of that Sonny spirit might leech out of it on to me now and again ;)
Here are some photos of two of the harps, an A and a C, that will be offered in the next day or two as part of a package for people who contribute to the Satan & Adam Indiegogo campaign. Both harps sound good. I rated the A as "fair" and the C as "good" for playability; both were clearly played a lot by Sonny and they've got a story to tell. The A, in particular, had THE look:
Adam, just for the sake of clarity, is that really a SBS in the ST harps? or is it a 365? my research indicates the SBS was not produced until several years after Sonny Terry's death.
Very cool pics. They were the old Hohner Marine Bands that I remember.
Question: Apart from having passed through Sonny's hands, do these presumably circa 1960s-70s Marine Bands have desirable qualities that current Marine Bands do not? ---------- Tony Eyers Australia www.HarmonicaAcademy.com everyone plays...
Lots of Golden Melodies. More than 50. Many of them in good shape.
There were a fair number of untouched mint MB's--harps he was given by Hohner, I suspect, but hadn't yet played--and they are in flawless shape. It's like opening a time capsule. The tuning on those harps is unbelievably good. The 1234 chords on the F harps chime in a beautiful way. Yes, my friends, the old boxed harps WERE better. Just amazing.
I'll bet those unplayed MB's were made prior to 1981, which until the last 5 years, were the last really good batch of harps coming from Hohner. Those chords sound really good was because those harps were tuned to 7LJI back then. A pre-WWII MB plays much better than those do. Prior to the 2000's, MB's cover plates were made of nickel plated hardened steel whereas since then they've been stainless steel and the stainless steel covers do have a tendency to have a somewhat brighter sound than hardened steel does, but if you have nickel allergies, that can be a problem because of the plating. From expereience, MB's from the 60's and 70's were FAR better instruments than anything Hohner put out from 1981 to 1995, which was their absolute worst years of quality and there are a lot of players who still think of Hohner in a negative way from bad experiences coming from those horrible quality years and that left LO an opening to exploit them and actually become real competition for Hohner.
ST played GM's for certain keys in later years, but whenever he did his classic chords and double stops, which were a huge part of his style, the ET tuning made those sound harsh and unclear for my taste and the ET tuning make the chords lose both sweetness as well as percussive quality. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Bob - is it your opinion that the harps Sonny got from Hohner were just plain ole Out-of-the-Box harps or do you think Hohner fine tuned them - sort of like the Artist Series they offer today? I understand about the 7LJI and the quality of pre-wars but I'm just wondering if it is purely a function of quality or was some special attention paid to the harps that were furnished to Sonny? There sure should have been. ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
@florida-treader -- Very few players got fine tuning from Hohner, and the vast majority of pros in the blues back in the day never got such treatment at all and they were all out of the box. Hohner stopped using 7LJI in 1985, and that's when they went to 19LJI, and then finally in 1992, that's when they went to the compromise tunings they presently use. So I would conclude, based on the times I've been around many of the old masters, like BW, they just used them straight out of the box as is. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
