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Does make you wonder why a single string can cost £20 when in fishing line the whole harp can be done for that ! The mark up must be huge .
Thankyou- yes you seem to have sorted it. – I don’t have swell doors so I think it’s a matter of taking the base off!!!
Yes it’s the wires!! The other strings were hard as the knots were a very tight squeeze!! But I haven’t got a clue how the wire strings are attached! There seems no way of getting into the inside of the soundboard except for the hole which only just takes the string.
Has anyone else got an old harp with a sealed soundboard? It must be possible ????Buy a pedal harp!!! If you buy a lever harp you will always wish you had a pedal one. Plus pedal harps are prettier!
The morley just needs gilding – no replacement gesso . I don’t mind – I just want a nice finish- I thought about picture frame restorers as they have experience gilding and work with the same materials as a harp is made from.
I just feel that some harp restorers charge an over inflated price because it’s a harp . Some of the quotes I have received are Rediculous!!!It’s been on a few days. I am watching it. When I saw it it was at £750. The seller is registered as living in Germany but the location is in Spain. The seller is a long established ebayer though with feedback.
I would still be careful as it might be a scam. A test would be to message and offer to pay cash on collection??Is it not possible to get your strings sprayed? Um sure if you take the strings to a local car body shop they could spray the strings up for you to the colours you like?
I must sound stupid- at least I’m learning! Contacted the owner of morley on Facebook – he said to give him the serial number and he is finding out the history of the harp.
Yes it’s strange- it runs from c to top a. As I said I bought it as a 47 string but found it to be 48. Maybe it was easier structurally to make it with a top a rather than more larger strings? It may have been a gimick at the time to get sales??
The only info on it that I found is as follows
George’s son, Joseph George Morley (1847-1921), was apprenticed to the influential pedal harp innovators, Erard. In 1890, the Morley family took over the Erard London shop and workshops. Joseph George designed a 48 string pedal harp of which he was justly proud, having this to say of his creation:“The Morley Orchestral Twentieth Century Harp is the outcome of some 25 years of the study of the harps of the Nineteenth Century in our repairing shops. It is not an invention; it is a concentration of 20 improvements on old inventions in the woodwork and mechanism.
