[Harp-L] Over-priced Custom Big Rivers and the Future of the Blues

[Tom Halchak <thalchak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Mike: 
 
Good to hear from you. As I stated in my post, I meant no offense.  Your 
reputation as a customizer is well established.  Like I said, I'm sure your 
custom harps are worth every penny you charge for them.  I know it is a bit of 
an apples to oranges comparison (a custom harp vs. and OOTB harp) but I was 
amused by the juxtaposition of your for sale post and the conversation about the 
high price of the SUB-30.  You have made a lot of great observations about the 
SUB-30 you've been working on since SPAH and I, like many others, appreciate 
them.  I never suggested that you made any negative comments about its price.  
 
All the best. 
 
Tom Halchak 
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com 



 Message: 2
 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 19:51:46 -0700 (PDT)
 From: Mike Fugazzi <mikefugazzi@xxxxxxxxx
 Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Over-priced Custom Big Rivers and the Future of
 	the Blues
  
 Ever the salesman, Tom.
 
 My overhead for a custom GM, not counting labor, is a lot more than $35, 
 and I know that you know that.  You also know that my pricing for a 
 traditional harmonica is well under $250.   I don't recall commenting on 
 the cost of the SUB30 being unfair.  I gladly paid retail and then took my 
 own free time to try and improve it.  I have posted, though, that such an 
 instrument should probably be priced near that of a chromatic. Heck, I am a 
 Hohner endorser!  $300ish for a MINT diatonic that letâs you bend notes 
 like this is totally appropriate in my book.  I would play around $300 for 
 the type of SUBs Brendan had.
 
 I think you get what you pay for.  My custom prices are consistent with my 
 competitors, and I feel morally obligated to stay close to their prices for 
 comparable work for a number of reasons.  I think cutting corners, 
 undercutting price, trying to steal clients, or delivering an inferior 
 product just to save a few bucks or grow my business takes the meaning out 
 of what I am trying to do and is classless.  For example, you'd never see 
 me emailing or calling friends of the competition to get a cut of their 
 action.  I could easily give free or cheap harps to pro players that are 
 worth $250, as I am friends with quite a few, just to get something in 
 return, but why?  FWIW, I did give one player a free harp because I screwed 
 up a booking arrangement that cost him $40.  
 
 To each his own, really.  I don't care what people play.  Should I be of 
 some help to them, though, all the better for me! If this means doing 
 custom work, then so be it. I mean, really, if I was in it for the money, I 
 could easily sell $100-$125 harps all day long.
 
 Back to my participation recently on Harp-l, which was around the SUB30...I 
 think $185 or around there is totally reasonable, but I would totally 
 assume having to tweak the gapping no matter who I was.  I've put about 
 10hrs of playing in on it, and it is the only non-Richter harp I've been 
 that into.  That being said, my personal Marine Bands let me to every bit 
 as much and are easier for me to play - they are louder and I am more 
 familiar with the note layout.  
 
 On Thursday, September 13, 2012 3:28:48 PM UTC-5, Tom Halchak wrote:
 
  I have been enjoying this conversation that has been sparked by comments 
  about the SUB-30. It has gone off in some interesting tangents.  It really 
  feels like there are a bunch of guys sitting around, perhaps sipping on 
  their favorite adult beverage, and having an open and honest discussion 
  about what is important to them.  So many great points have been made and 
  I   would like to add my commentary to some of the things said by a variety of 
  people. 
 
  In the interest of full disclosure I think it is important for you to 
  understand where I am coming from because my comments will certainly be 
  influenced by my perspective as an after-market harmonica parts guy.  I 
  have   been playing the harmonica for right at 40 years so I have witnessed 
  first-hand the escalating prices of harmonicas over the years.  I have 
  also  been in the after-market business since January 2011 so I have torn apart 
  and reassembled more harps than the average guy. At this particular moment 
  in time I have over 500 combs in stock, about 200 sets of powder coated 
  cover plates and easily 200 harmonicas.  This is not meant to be an 
  advertisement.  I'm just sayin.. 

  Let me start by pointing out that the people who read and post on harp-l 
  and other harmonica centric forums are a different class of people.  Not 
  better or worse - just different.  My guess is that the average harp-l 
  contributor is far more knowledgeable about and been playing the harmonica far longer 
  than the average harmonica player.  Brendan stated that "The diatonic 
  harmonica is the biggest selling instrument in the world - in terms of 
  units sold."  On some of the old Marine Band boxes Hohner printed words to the 
  effect of, "Hohner employs 6,000 workers and produces 20 million 
  harmonicas a year."  Twenty Million a year for the past 100+ years!  That's a lot of 
  harmonicas and a lot of harmonica players.  How many subscribers does 
  harp-l have - 200, 500, 1,000?  Whatever the number, it is a very small 
  percentage of the harmonica playing population.  Most of the stuff we obsess about 
  never even enters the mind of the "average" harmonica player.  Does that 
  mean this stuff is not important?  No. Of course it's important.  After 
  all, SPAH is the Society for the Preservation and ADVANCEMENT(!) of the 
  Harmonica.  We're the ones who want to see progress!  But let's understand 
  that as far as the harmonica is concerned, we have much higher standards 
  than most. 
 
  Ken Deifik asked, "Does anybody like the Suzuki UltraBend out of the box?" 
  I do.  It plays as well out of the box as any other good harmonica.  Could 
  it be made to play better with some "customization"?  Of course - but name 
  one harmonica that can't be similarly described.  The last guy who tried 
  to build an "Out of the Box harmonica that was as good as a Custom" famously 
  went down in flames.  I'm not saying it can't be done, but so far nobody 
  has built a successful company that could make this claim. 
 
  Look at it this way.  Take what most would describe as an "Intermediate" 
  player.  They are proficient at draw bends on the bass end of the harp and 
  blow beds on the treble end.  They can't over-blow.  They can't do single 
  reed valved bends on a valved harp.  Hand them a SUB-30 and, without any 
  improvement in technique or skills and you've just added 6-8 notes to 
  their repertoire.  Out of the box!  Give the average guy a choice between buying 
  a $65 Crossover or Session Steel and tell them that it will be six months to 
  a year before they can use over-blows or valved bends musically, or they can 
  spend $200 and be able to play the same notes TODAY and I suggest to you 
  that many will fork over the $200.  So yeah, out of the box it is a pretty 
  damn good harp. 
 
  What about the price of harps and custom harps?  Harps, like everything 
  else, are getting more expensive.  Does it really cost Suzuki that much to 
  make a SUB-30 that than say a Manji?  I dunno.  I have no idea how Suzuki 
  determined the price.  But if the 30 reed diatonic is indeed the harmonica 
  of the future and given that the patent has expired and anybody can build 
  them, how long will it be before others enter the market.  Supply and 
  demand.  Maybe competition will help drive prices down.  Maybe not.  We'll 
  see.  I'll tell you what I find ironic though is that interspersed among 
  all this talk about paying $200 for a SUB-30, we've got Mike Fugazzi 
  advertising a custom Golden Melody for $250.  No offense to Mike.  I'm sure his custom 
  harp is worth every penny.  A Golden Melody is a $35 harmonica that has 
  been turned into a custom harp with an asking price of $250.   
 
  So let's talk about customizing harps.    
 
  Matt Smart has made a number of excellent points in his posts recently. 
   He brings a lot of experience to the table and makes a lot of sense.  Matt 
  posted a comment recently on Facebook urging customizers to teach their 
  customers some basic skills, such as gapping.  I couldn't agree more. 
   Matt and I are both very comb centric because we are both in the business but 
  here's my take on the subject.  If you take the average harmonica, flat 
  sand the comb (or replace it with a quality custom comb) and flat sand the draw 
  plate to eliminate leaks, then adjust the gaps  - nothing more than that - 
  you will have a harmonica that will meet the needs of 95% of the harmonica 
  playing population.  A perfect example of this, by the way, is a direct 
  response to the question posted by Michael Montgomery about the Big River. 
  In the beginning of the summer I picked up 30 new Big Rivers at a very 
  good price.  I offered them on my website with your choice of any custom comb 
  for $35.00.  All I did was flat sand the draw plate, replace the comb, check 
  for leaks and ship them out.   No gapping.  Just like they came from the 
  factory with a better comb and flat sanded reed plates.  The feedback has been 
  100% positive.  They all turned out to be nice playing harps.  Are they 
  over-blow monsters?  No, but I don't think that's what my customers were looking 
  for.  These simple steps are something that anybody can do.  Reed work is 
  another story all together.  With the exception of the Marine Band which is still 
  assembled with nails most harps nowadays can be taken apart with a 
  screwdriver and made into better playing harp very easily.  Doesn't it 
  make sense to acquire some of those minimal skills?  If more people did you 
  would hear a lot less comments like, "I played the XXXX-Harp 20 years ago and it 
  was a piece of junk" (therefore all XXXX-Harps are junk).  It is entirely 
  possible that all that piece of junk needs was to adjust the gaps on the 
  reeds and it would have been a perfectly good harp.  Not every out of the 
  box is a winner and neither are they all lemons.  But it my firm belief 
  that, unless you are talking about $10 Chinese toy harp, the vast majority 
  of harps from the major manufacturers, Hohner, Suzuki, Seydel and Lee 
  Oskar can be made to be good playing harps with a little bit of TLC. 
 
  My friend Harvey Berman in New Orleans, a wonderful gentleman and a very 
  fine customizer, created a thread on MBH asking if you really needed a 
  custom harp.  Here's the link:  
 
  http://www.modernbluesharmonica.com/board/board_topic/5560960/1568722.htm 
 
  If you watch Dave Barret's interview with Joe Spiers, you will come away 
  with the same impression. 
 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie7tsb28Ywk     
 
  Most people really don't need full blown custom harps.  I do not believe 
  that customizers are guilty of overselling but I do believe that many 
  people buy custom harps because they think it will magically make them better 
  players.  I hope these are not the same guys who are complaining about 
  $200 for SUB-30.  Wouldn't that be ironic? 
 
  I know this post has run on kinda long.  Sorry about that.  I've been 
  following the conversation for a few days and just haven't had time to 
  inject my thoughts until now. 
 
  Tom Halchak 
  www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com 
  Clearwater, FL