Hohner was pushing some Bob Dylan signed harps a while back. How much did they go for? I recall t'was in the 1000's. ---------- I could be bound by a nutshell and still count myself a king of infinite space
Just clicked through on your link nacoran. I'd never seen the web site translator thing before. Kinda cool. I love their Google-translated description of the Croma Garlia:
"Harmonic voices with a plate of 1.07 mm special alloy of brass, reeds with special alloy of bronze and treatment with Ag255. The blades are fixed with stainless steel rivets. The closing of the board of voices is done with seven screws and the body is acrylic crystal. " ----------
Ness, there is even a feature where you can suggest a better translation. I actually tried improving their translation but no one took my suggestion. (I don't speak Portuguese, but I suggested some translations in context.) Board of voices does have a more poetic sound than reed plate though, doesn't it? They have some videos on YouTube of inside their factory.
I think this is the most expensive one I have seen: - http://www.harmonicas-direct.com/Product/Silver-Concerto.asp ---------- Kinda hot in these rhinos!
Andrew, you win this round! Although to be fair that's a chromatic and GH and my posts were diatonics. I think in price it usually goes- Tremolo, Diatonic, Chromatic, Bass, Chord... with oddballs mixed in in between. I know there is a $1000 tremolo chromatic.
It would be nice if someone could figure out a way to make good harmonicas LESS expensively.
Anytime you are using Sterling Silver as one of the components, it's always gonna be more expensive. A classic example comes from Hohner with the Silver Concerto model, which has the cover plates made of sterling silver, designed for classical chromatic players by Tommy Reilly, a classical harp virtuoso, and that goes for $3,000 US.
When you get into those high priced areas, there are fewer of them being spit out, so that more care is gonna be taken with them than for a harp for under $40 a piece, and that means less time on the production line and more hand labor, and that alone makes any instrument considerably more expensive.
Let's face the facts. If you want something top level quality at a cheap price, FORGET IT AND QUIT BITCHING ABOUT IT!!! It ain't gonna happen. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
i agree bob.. even with modern tech like in the manji.. youre paying the little extra for the tech, not a better set up harp...at the end of the day its still a mass produced instrument ---------- Kyzer's Travels Kyzer's Artwork
@Boris, since the internet, I've been introduced some awesome blues players coming from Spain and Brazil in the past few years, both "modern" as well as die hard tradtional players.
@Kyzer, very well said and mass produced AKA out of the box is still mass produced/out of the box and there is ALWAYS gonna be imperfections.
What a lot of players don't realize is that some of the more expensive harps may also be using materials that are extremely difficult to work with, requiring both different tooling not on the normal assembly line plus MUCH MORE hand labor where robotics just won't cut it and when you take all that into condisderation, no one in their right mind is gonna do that stuff for free.
It's kinda like what Rod Piazza once told me about a lot of harp players: they're either too broke or way too damned cheap to get the right stuff. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
