Re: [Harp-L] Harps made in China

["Alexander Savelyev" <Alexander.Savelyev@xxxxxxxx>]

My 2 cents on that. While in the states I sent 600-dollar money order to one of the Chinese factories and actually bought a bunch of harmonicas including chord and bass, chromatic and diatonics. The quality was not over the top but it exceeded my expectations. 

And considering the price - too sensitive to share here - these harmonicas were very and very good both construction-wise and soundwise. 
To have an idea about the price range - I paid for a decent 10 holer - construction quality resemblig that of Hohner Silver Star and sound quality even higher (all bends available - sound is not as sweet as in SP20 but but decent in general and reeds are responsive) - only ............. 56 cents!!!!!!!!   No mistyping here, I confess it's true. 

But I must mention that it's very difficult to get in touch with the right people and the shipping issue is the most critical one - almost half the order price went for shipping. 

Plus communication was done only vie email as no one actually spoke good English there. So, the whole transaction looked like a lottery. But I'm glad I turned out to be a winner:) 

Challenges: 
- most producers tend to prefer bulk orders (sometimes thousands of instruments are mentioned)
- payment issue - you are to send cash by money order and no credible info exists - just a website
- shipping cost is too high (many manufactures work with shipping agents who ship only by express mail)
- they have sort of VAT or sales tax and they don't mention it in the very beginning and then they add it at the end - surprize:)
- most probably import duty shall be levied if you place a bulk order

*in my case, 44% is usually levied, but I was lucky enough to make arrangements in China to avoid additional payments plus
**good thing is that you can negotiate the price! like on flee market - I discovered that by incident, but then it proved to be true. 

So, good luck. Yes, and it's very important to find a good manufacture - and there are some for sure...