RE: [Harp-L] Hohner Price Increase

["Bill Kumpe" <bkumpe@xxxxxxx>]

I doubt if I am going to buy any new Hohners.  I have complete sets already.
We have a guy locally (Mike Peace) who rebuilds and tweaks them to far
better than stock for a very reasonable price.   So, given a choice between
rolling the dice and buying a new harp or giving Mike thirty bucks and
getting back a much better harp that I KNOW will be dead on, it only makes
sense to keep rebuilding them.  And, I guess if a lot of people start doing
this, Hohner will have to raise prices again to make up the lost revenue.  

Bill Kumpe
Tulsa, OK  

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Rogers [mailto:bullfrog9@xxxxxxx] 
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 10:27 AM
To: Bill Kumpe; harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Hohner Price Increase

Thanks for letting us know.  Now I can point out to my wife, that keeping
all thes old harps for fifty years, is actually a great idea.

Bullfrog
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Kumpe" <bkumpe@xxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 11:22 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Hohner Price Increase


> Just got an email from John Watts at Coast to Coast warning that Hohner
> plans to increase their prices by another 8 to 10 percent shortly.  I know
> the dollar is deteriorating.  And,  I know the cost of everything is going
> up.  But, I would propose that Hohner and Suzuki take note of the fact 
> that
> harmonicas are becoming less and less of a value on the low end musical
> instrument market.  Right now, in my neighborhood music store, a very
> serviceable soprano uke with geared tuners and quality strings costs about
> the same as a Marine Band, Special 20 or Golden Melody.  I bought one of
> these low end ukes for a kid for Christmas and almost wound up keeping it
> and giving her cash.  It was a cool little instrument.   Last week, I paid
> 65 dollars for a very serviceable baritone uke that with a little set up 
> and
> tweaking has turned into a really useful tool in my box.
>
>
>
> What I'm saying is the competition is not just other harp manufacturers.
> The underlying decision for the beginner is whether or not to play harp at
> all.  I just counted heads in my harp case.  At fifty bucks a pop it would
> take over two grand to replace it.  Even figuring approximately 30 bucks a
> pop that is probably the average price I paid, I'm still looking at a 
> twelve
> hundred dollar instrument (or set of instruments if you want to argue
> semantics).    Twelve hundred bucks will buy a Les Paul, a Gretsch, a very
> nice acoustic, or a couple of darn good Epiphones.  At at least fifty 
> bucks
> per single unit and or worse if you throw in the Hohner's new marketing
> strategy of packaging standard replacement harps in multiple units at the
> point of sale, they are competing head on with not only ukes but even
> guitars.  You can buy a very playable guitar these days for a little over 
> a
> hundred bucks.   Bottom line, the harp is turning an awfully expensive
> instrument, a fact that the manufacturers should keep in mind.
>
>
>
> Bill Kumpe
>
> Tulsa, OK
>
> 

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