[Harp-L] Hohner blister pack spotted

[Michael Easton <diachrome@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I stopped in Guitar Center today and saw a cool floor display stand  
for the Hohners.

You can't miss it if you go looking for harps.  There is a big Marine  
Band on top of the floor model stand that rotates.  The harps aren't  
in the hard blister packs. They are in the easy to open
soft plastic case with a card stapled to the top. No need to use a  
scissors to open them from what I could tell.   And yes even the  
chromatics are in blister packs.  They had one 270 in stock.
The back of the card described Hohners other chromatics and the style  
of music recommended for those particular chromatics.  Btw, they had  
the 270 listed for less then I've seen it in the past
at GC online.  $119.  That's better then I can do.

The Big Rivers were priced around $17+ with the MB and SP in the $20.  
All in all the prices didn't see that high compared to what they are  
now.  Perhaps some of the blister packs are at the older price and  
will remain that way until the Feb. 15 increase. The greed depends on  
the dealer.

There are photos of different endorsees on some of the cards for the  
diatonics.  The only guy I recognized was John Popper on the S20  
cards.   The display stand also had a shelf on one side.
GC decided to pull the Lee Oskars out of the case and place those on  
the shelf.  I think pulling them out from behind the counter will be a  
good thing.

For all the worrying we've been doing the past couple of days i think  
the blister packs will work if stores chose to display them the way my  
local GC does.  It's not that bad and not as lame as the BluesBand   
blister packs.  You know exactly what key they have in stock.   The  
only downside I saw was too many MS harps and not enough of the HM  
diatonics.  They should have some 280s up there as well.


Michael Easton
www.harmonicarepair.com