For most musical instruments, the dealer discount is 50%. A Steinway dealer who is selling a Steinway for $100,000 bought it for $50,000! But for harps, the dealer discount is so small, usually 10% to 20%, that they simply cannot afford to discount the instrument. I’m surprised the dealer offered you a 3% discount.

I will add my two cents here, ha, ha! Carl is correct, and I too am surprised that a harp dealer would offer you any discount. I expected to pay the full listed price for all of my harps over the years, and sometimes a nice dealer would include something like an accessory or shipping for free. Other times, when I was trading in a used harp for a new one, the dealer would give me a good, generous price on the trade-in. But remember, the harp dealers need to make enough money to stay in business, and it is not like some of the other instruments, guitars, violins, or pianos, where there is a larger market for those kinds of instruments. Also, harps are almost entirely hand-made, so that fact explains their greater expense, compared to factory-made instruments.

I wish you the best in your harp purchase,
Balfour

“They wouldn’t have offered any discount if I hadn’t mentioned that. All this makes me wonder if they are even truthful about what they are selling and if I should trust them for years to come.”

I’ve held off responding to your post until now, mainly because I found your second post quite offensive. The above quote, taken from that post, makes you sound pushy and disrespectful, and totally concerned with haggling over price. If you can’t afford a particular instrument, then buy a cheaper one. Or look for a used instrument that you can afford. But don’t blame and denigrate a dealer for a problem that is entirely yours.

I suppose it depends on what kind of harp is being considered but I will say that the margins for any good harp are slim for the builder as well as for a dealer. Cost of materials, overhead, labor and supply/demand keep a builder’s margin pretty low. For a lever harp maker such as Dusty Strings I would guess 10%-20% profit margin. They certainly would not give anyone a discount except in unusual circumstances e.g. on a prototype or an “orphan harp” like the one they made for Martha Gallagher.

Which brings up another question: what kind of harp are you looking for? If you have not played for a long time it might be best to start out with something like Dusty’s Ravenna 34 or Musicmakers’ Voyageur. There is a ready second hand market for lever harps if you later decide to grade up to a concert (pedal) harp. For that matter if you might consider a Musicmakers kit if cost is a real worry and you can handle some simple wood working tasks.

Don’t feel bad, you weren’t to know.

The people here are really happy to help; you might wish to begin another thread telling us some details – your budget, type of harp desired, location etc.

Best wishes,
Biagio

P. S. to what I wrote above:

Nicbo, I do hope you will indeed let us know more about the harp you intend to purchase, like Biagio said. In the USA, I can heartily recommend Pacific-Atlantic Harps in CA, The Virginia Harp Center, and the Atlanta Harp Center. The individual lever harp makers, like Dusty Strings, Thormahlen Harps, Musicmakers Harps, Rees Harps, Pratt Harps, and several others are also very nice folks to work with, and they are all very talented harp makers. I recommend three pedal harp makers, Camac, Lyon and Healy, and Salvi. You can get on-line to compare prices of new harps and used harps. Harp Column also advertises pre-owned harps in the Classified section, and occasionally, new harps.

I hope we have been of some help to you, and please continue to post here.

Cheers and best regards,
Balfour

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by balfour-knight. Reason: typo!

Hi again, Nicbo!

So good to see and read your post above! Thanks for letting us know that you are interested in the Egerie by Camac. I am one of Camac’s biggest fans, and own a gorgeous Atlantide Prestige. I “grew up” on Lyon and Healy, and owned several nice harps made by them, but I now am a “Camac artist,” ha, ha! At many of my former concerts, L&H harps have been provided for me, but now I take my Camac, or ask for a comparable Camac, if taking my own harp is too inconvenient.

I do love that I can regulate this harp all by myself, even though it is such a fine instrument that it requires very little adjustment. I have owned it since 2017, and it was professionally regulated by Liza Jensen of Camac. The manual of instructions is very good, and if you are good with your hands at this sort of thing, you will be able to regulate the harp yourself. It is very important to study the manual and know that Camacs regulate differently than other brands of harps. You can read about some of the Camac “differences” on the website of Pacific-Atlantic Harps, Carolyn Sykes.

On the main website of Camac, there are wonderful concerts by some very famous harpists, and you can find one by Sylvain Blassel done on an Egerie. It is gorgeous! I have not yet had the pleasure of playing a new Egerie, but I hear from some of my friends that they are very nice! You would have a full-size 47 string concert grand harp which would be capable of playing ALL of the harp repertoire.

Enjoy your harp journey, my new friend. The harp is the most beautiful instrument in existence!

Kind regards,
Balfour