Trying to look into selling a harp, but clueless about it

[harry-catlin]

I have a Morley Elysian pedal harp that I’ve had for about 10 years but which I have resolved to part with, as I no longer play it often enough to justify keeping it, and I’m shortly going to be leaving the country. I’m not sure which specific model it is, since I received it as a gift when I was a lot younger and only the brand is labelled on the harp itself, but it has 46 strings (or, at least, room for 46 strings), is maybe 5’6″ tall, and is a medium sort of honey colour with simple gold edging. I’ve had it for ten years and I’ve never had it serviced or anything, but apart from missing ten or so strings at the top it seems to me to have no noticeable problems. It’s been about two years since I last played it.

The problem is, though, I’m not any kind of expert on this kind of thing. In fact I have basically no idea what I’m doing! I had harp lessons from around 9 to 18 and despite receiving this harp as a gift from my very keen grandmother when I was about 15 I didn’t end up pursuing it very far once I left school, for a variety of reasons. I have never been particularly involved in any kind of harp community, and I have no idea what degree of servicing to expect it might need, how much I could expect to pay for that, where I would need to go… (I live in London, if that helps.) My ideal, because I don’t have that much time before I’ll be leaving the UK, would be to be able to sell it to somebody who makes a business out of buying used harps, doing them up, and reselling them for a profit, but I don’t know if that’s a thing people do, and my research hasn’t cleared it up for me much.

Basically, if anybody has any advice or information I’d appreciate it a lot! Thanks.

[Tacye]

From your description it sounds like probably a Cecilia model, from when they were made in Russia. Pilgrim harps would service it and sell it on commission for you (they quoted me 10% commission recently), Geraldine at Affairs of the Harp would probably organise the same.

[tracey-kjonegaard]

Hey Harry,

Nice to see you took my advice from tumblr 😉
Good luck selling it!!

Tracey

[Author]

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