RE: [Harp-L] Hohner Price Increase

["Bill Kumpe" <bkumpe@xxxxxxx>]

About "burning through customers."   I find it odd as a matter of fact
unique that the quantum advances in manufacturing technology have resulted
in harps constantly costing more per unit proportional to average income of
their consumer.  After my time in the military, I spent fifteen years in the
computer business.  I am typing this message on a $350.00 brand new desktop
that has far more computing power than the half million dollar "virtual
machine" mini computers I used to sell to run whole companies.  I carry a
slim hard back book sized $300.00 netbook to coffee-shops, etc. that has
fifty times more computing power than the first generation PC's I sold just
a couple of decades ago.  It has features like mobile internet phone and
video conferencing that no one even dreamed of back then.  Shoot, my cell
phone has more power and memory than PC's we used to seriously offer to
businesses.  My Sony  MP3 player has more memory than computers that used to
run whole companies.  My new 20k plus Hyundai Sonata gets 33 mpg at 80 mph,
and aside from being quiet, comfortable and fast has speakerphone, MP3
player and satellite radio as standard equipment.  I play 3 guitars.  An
Epiphone Les Paul, an Oscar Schmidt Delta King and an Art & Lutherie Folk.
$299.00, $119.00, $299.00 US respectively.  They are all very good guitars
for the money but more importantly, when I started playing in the 60's they
would have each cost several hundred dollars in 1965 money.   You just
couldn't get guitars of that quality without shelling out major bucks.
Quality in guitars has skyrocketed while prices have continued to drop.  So,
I ask you.  What is so special about a couple of bucks worth of wood or
plastic, stainless and brass that justifies continual price increases with
marginal increases in quality while the rest of the music industry and
industry in general has done just the opposite?  My point is, at some point
the market will recognize this and make corrections one way or another in
either demand, cost or competition.

 

Bill Kumpe

Tulsa, OK