"The ones who can be bought off with a handful of harmonicas, even harps
they don't really like and wouldn't otherwise use?"
As I mentioned in a previous post, most probably too long and full of
unnecessary detail (for which reason you might have missed it),
Similar harps, of similar quality, but made by differing
manufacturers,,Suzuki, Hohner, etc.,, are available at varying but similar
price ranges. It wouldn't be beyond the imagination to find that for
certain
players, skilled on almost any reasonably built harp, the brand or model
wouldn't seemingly be as much a factor, as much as perhaps a backroom deal
for sponsorship would, involving free harps or other hidden rewards, such
as
publicity. This does not mean that they would end up playing harps the
they
"don't really like, and wouldn't otherwise use."