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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas
Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas
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florida-trader
950 posts
Jul 04, 2016
2:23 PM
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Last week I posted two of the Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas on eBay in order to gauge the interest. Considering that it was our first marketing effort I was very pleased with the results. Yesterday I listed six of them on my website. Thanks to a Facebook post by Adam and his monthly newsletter, all six sold out within 18 hours. I have listed six more and they are available for your perusal here:
Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Jul 05, 2016 9:38 AM
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MP
3367 posts
Jul 08, 2016
4:19 PM
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Awesome, Tom!
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Have good day. M.A.P.
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florida-trader
952 posts
Jul 09, 2016
9:13 AM
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I just posted this on harp-l so I might as well post it here too. This is a work in progress and I am learning as I go.
I've been working on this project for months. It is all uncharted territory. I don't know of anything else quite like this that has ever been done so it took a lot of thought and planning to figure things out. When all is said and done, you have to make your best guess and go with it. I am very pleased with the resposne thus far. To use a worn out cliche, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity - for me as an Agent of the Estate and for harmonica enthusiasts who want to own a piece of history. We have all seen lots of things sold as collectibles and Sonny's harmonicas are not that different except it takes something of an educated palate to appreciate their importance.
Just in case you are interested I would like to share some of my observations about the estate harmonicas. I didn't pay that much attention to the actual harmonicas up until the time I started taking pictures and writing up descriptions. Toward the end of last year, the estate paid Adam Gussow to "appraise" the harmonicas. Adam sat down for 10 hours over a period of two days and played about 150 harps which had been sent to him. He made notes about each individual harp and gave each a "rating". The rating was based mostly on how well the harps played. Ironically, one of the primary reasons that Adam referred me to Delores Boyd, the Manager of Sonny Terry Estate LLC, is because of my experience with restoring vinatage harps. I guess his thinking was that I could do some minimally invasive surgery on these harps and make them play better. In one of my first conversations with Delores I politely informed her that even though it is true that I can and do restore vintage harps, it is the last thing I would do to these harps. I feel very strongly that restoring these harps would reduce the value - not enhance them. When you hold one of these harps in you hands and think that the guy who last played on it was Sonny Terry (notwithstanding a brief test by Adam) there is a certain mystique. To alter that by cleaning and restoring the harp would be to wipe away some of the magic. So I believe that they are best left just as they are.
That said, I can tell you that these harps are pretty much in the ideal condition from the point of view of collectibilty. Not many people would be interested in buying a Sonny Terry harp so they could put it into their gig case and perform with it (although I do have one such potential buyer). Rather, most people want to own a piece of history and if they can also play some Sonny Terry licks on it, that might give them some sort of special conneciton with Sonny. It would certainly warm the heart if you are Sonny fan. So what is more important - evidence that Sonny actually played the harp or how well it plays? To me, it would be about 90% appearance and 10% playability. Heck, even a Sonny Terry harp that was totally unplayable would still be highly collectible. But here's the thing. All of these harps show signs of wear - some more than others - but all of them are "playable". To be sure some of them are a bit out of tune and there's a few reeds that have some dried up mouth juices interfering with their movement but I have yet to run across one that is just toast. And if you think about it, that makes sense. Sonny Terry was a Hohner Endorsee for decades. I seriously doubt that he was ever lacking for harmonicas. It is clear to me that Sonny would play a harp for a long time and when it went out of tune or some reeds got stuck, he would put it aside and break in another. I have restored a couple hundred pre-war Marine Bands in the past few years and I have, in my possession, many harmonicas that are in far worse condition than Sonny's. We're talking about rusted covers, warped or broken combs, loose nails - you name it (I have found more than one insect coccon inside vintage harps). Sonny's harps have almost zero rust. I've only seen one Marine Band where the tips of the tines were slightly protruding from the reed plates (a condition commonly found on vintage harps). The nails which hold the reed plates to the comb are tight and secure on virtually every Marine Band that I have examined. There are a couple cover plate nails that are slightly loose but that is a common issue Marine Bands. All the Golden Melodys I have seen so far are the ones that were built with pins. I started playing Golden Melodys back in the 70's and had issues on many of them with the pins loosening and wiggling free. All the pins on Sonny's Golden Melodys are tight and secure. In short, doing my amateur forensic analysis of these harps, I would say that Sonny played with a dry mouth (something for all of us to strive for) and took good care of his instruments. They are well worn, but if I purchased a pre-war restoration project in similar condition, I could easily clean off the tarnish, straighten crushed covers, clean the comb of dried mouth juices and make the harp look and play like almost new. But to do that to a Sonny Terry harp would be crazy. Clean off the half-moon semi-circle tarnish from his lips? No way! Straighten out covers that were crushed by the Master's Hand? Preposterous! Clean out Sonny's dried up DNA from the comb? No! If you did that you would just have another ordinary Marine Band.
And so as this project progresses, I am very pleased with the response. I am very pleased with the condition of the harmonicas as I do think they are perfect collectibles. I am happy to be of service to Delores and Sonny Terry Estate LLC. I will keep you up to date as anything newsworthy develops.
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Jul 11, 2016 6:03 AM
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nacoran
9141 posts
Jul 09, 2016
11:28 AM
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The real question is, "Can I get enough DNA to make a viable clone?" :)
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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florida-trader
955 posts
Jul 10, 2016
8:46 PM
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I have listed nine more of the Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas on my website. These are the last ones I was sent in the first batch of harps. The reception thus far has been fantastic in that every harp has sold out within 24 hours of being listed. It is plain to see that Sonny Terry has a lot of very devoted fans. What an inspiration. I will be bringing some of the estate harmonicas with me to SPAH but I probably won’t have any more listed on my website until the middle of August after SPAH.
Sonny Terry Estate Harmonicas
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Tom Halchak
www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Jul 10, 2016 8:46 PM
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