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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Found some older Richard Sleigh harps
Found some older Richard Sleigh harps
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DogwoodTN
1 post
Sep 12, 2024
1:18 PM
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First off, I love the forum, and I'm glad it's here. This is my first post. I've found lots of useful information here! If you want to know more about where I'm coming from, I added it to my user profile. I've been tinkering a lot lately, and bought more old harps off eBay than I care to admit. I've been learning a lot. I also seem to have a metal sensitivity - some old cover plates bother me instantly, and even just an exposed brass reed plate can bother me sometimes. I do prefer playing a sandwich style to a Special 20, so I've been experimenting to see what works best for me.
ANYWAY. I saw an eBay lot with ~14 harps, 8 of them Special 20s, and figured the batch would give me lots of parts to work with. A couple Marine Bands looked like they'd been converted to screws, so that piqued my interest a little more. I won the lot pretty cheaply, and told myself, "Alright, I'm buying this lot and then no more!" and uninstalled the app from my phone.
Surprise, surprise: THREE of the Marine Bands are Richard Sleigh customs from ~2000. They have what appears to be a dark brown composite comb, reed plates from the late 90s, and possibly prewar cover plates (they have the star). The whole lot was played hard and put up dirty - almost every harmonica seems to have a couple blown reeds, including the Sleighs, and some bodies are broken or very rusty.
But I was so thrilled when I opened the box up, I just had to share with someone who would care, so here I am! I'm very curious who might have owned all these harps before they landed on eBay, because they obviously took the instrument seriously. (They must have played a lot to blow out six "A" harps alone, including 2 of the Sleighs.)
Despite the shot tuning and possibly bad reeds, it's so great to see, feel and hear a pro's custom work, and feel how responsive the harps are. Gives me something to strive toward! I'm going to look into sending them back to Richard Sleigh for repair.
Thanks for letting me share my excitement!
-Alex
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snowman
857 posts
Sep 14, 2024
8:02 AM
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if your now working on harps, heres a tidit.
sp 20, GM, crossover, marine band have interchangeable reeds.\ not talking reedplates but reeds.
if your replacing reeds u can swap n match.
many videos available etc on how swap reeds---i use screws i got 20 or more years ago from a german co.
if im wrong about the four models, cuz somthins changed, someone will correct. now out of business.
sounds like classic harps, worth getting operational again.
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nacoran
10450 posts
Sep 14, 2024
9:51 AM
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Cool find!
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Nate
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SuperBee
7127 posts
Sep 15, 2024
7:09 AM
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“ sp 20, GM, crossover, marine band have interchangeable reeds.\ not talking reedplates but reeds.”
Not wrong but also Rocket. Rocket and Sp20 use same reed plates. Crossover and marine band deluxe use same reed plates. Marine Band Classic “1896” uses same reed plates as deluxe and crossover but they aren’t drilled and tapped for screws. Golden Melody stands alone but does use same reeds as the other models. Tuning varies between models but you have to tune them when you replace reeds anyway
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