Re: Clunkers we have known and loved….

[Elizabeth Volpé Bligh]

My very first harp was a very old, third-hand Lyon-Healy gold 22, which had ivory pegs in the soundboard and had been rebuilt before I bought it. I was such an idiot; I didn’t know what a great little harp I had and sold it to one of my first students. It had a lovely tuning key that fit the pegs like a glove and never
wore out. I kept it when I sold the harp and cried when I lost it! I guess the pegs and tuning keys are made of different grade steel now. My next, brand-new harp was a real clunker with terrible, dead tone, so I had to sell that one and buy yet another! I spent several years nagging that student, trying to get her to sell the first harp back to me but she wanted to keep it in spite of the fact that she had quite lessons and was hardly playing at all. My third instrument started off sounding quite green but developed into a beauty, thank heavens!