No problem, Gary, I'd be glad to comment....
$90 is a lot of money, but, consider this, that 1847 in the pic with the Lee Oskar was one of the first 1847s sold in the U.S. It's 16 months old now. In that 16 months, It spent a lot of time as my main harp, as my carry harp. It got a lot of playing time, a lot of hard playing time. We played all our hard, fast bluegrass, like Elk River Road, Kentucky Mandolin, Bluegrass Breakdown in G, so I could use that harp. In that time, it has got the hardest-attack songs in my portfolio. In fact, it has gotten a lot of those hard-attack songs that, ordinarily, another key harp would have had to endure.
In this 16 months, with the amount of attack I've put on it, I would have gone through four Marine Bands with that amount of concentrated abuse... so the 1847 has already saved me a lot of money. It's not done saving me money. The reeds are ALL still in PERFECT tune. It's not even drifted to slightly-out, but acceptable tune.
Now I've half valved it, so it's even more stressed, the blow reeds are not only stressed with their draw bend interaction, they are now stressed with blow bending. But it is still in perfect tune.
This 1847 will go out someday. When, I have no idea. But it has already saved me a hell of a lot of money. The 1847 will save an extreme hell of a lot of money if you play D harps a lot. D harps, the lowest of the short slots, blows out quicker than other keys. But the 1847 D, E, F are all LONG slot harmonicas.
The $90 cost isn't just for steel... it's for all the other tweaks that make it play better. The steel itself, I'm convinced, doesn't change how it plays much, just makes it last longer. What you get extra are these really thick coverplates, and very little room between reed and slot. Instead of stamping the plates from one side, which distorts the slot some, Seydel punches it out from BOTH sides. With the reed slots truer, they could make the reed/reedslot gap a heckuva lot tighter.When you take one apart and think "I'm gonna emboss it" you look at that gap and say "why bother embossing it?" I emboss it, but lightly, mostly I'm just making the corners of the slots sharper, not trying to bring it in that much.
There's been a lot of talk about reed arcing, somebody please take the covers off an 1847 and look at the reeds, they are slightly arced. I don't know if that was intentional, but they are.
If you want to know what it's like to play one, but don't want to spend $90, get a Seydel Big Six, they are less than $40, but have steel reeds, biggest difference is the Big Six is a short-slot C.
The 1847 can serve a vital role as your main key harp to replace whatever you blow out all the time. That's what my one 1847 does and it saves me money.
Dave _______________________ Dave Payne Sr. Elk River Harmonicas www.elkriverharmonicas.com
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