[Harp-L] Tony Dannecker's harps

[Steve Baker <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I read the request for information about Mr Danneker's instruments  
and the comments from purchasers. I'd like to add my own observations:

Tony Dannecker is the son of the wonderful Willy Dannecker, a lovely  
man who was responsible for Hohner service in the UK for decades and  
was an old school Trossingen harmonica technician. What Tony does  
basically consists of setting up Hohner stock instruments to the  
requirements of his customers, i.e. mostly tuning and gapping. He  
also offers his own design of metal comb based on the Hohner MS  
Meisterklasse with rounded ends to the "teeth" in order to increase  
playing comfort.

What he does not do is make custom harmonicas and quite a number of  
serious customizers are unhappy about his claim to produce "The  
finest custom harmonicas in the world". As many members will be  
aware, customizing entails extremely exacting work on the reed plates  
and reeds, which requires a great deal of time and can only be done  
by a highly skilled player. This is the reason why real custom  
harmonicas are only produced in tiny amounts and are rightly very  
expensive. Mr Dannecker does not perform this work on his harmonicas  
and it's misleading to describe them as "custom instruments". There  
is absolutely nothing wrong with them, but potential purchasers  
should be clear that what they're buying is a stock harp which has  
been set up and tuned more accurately. A number of "real" customizers  
also offer this service, but at a considerably lower price than their  
actual custom instruments,

Steve

Steve Baker
steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.stevebaker.de
www.bluesculture.com
www.youtube.com/stevebakerbluesharp
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