JULIE BARKER wrote:
Hello Gabriel
In answer to your question. Yes a good gurdy is a sound investment.
Philip,
I thank you for the response. You validate my thoughts in regard to the
economic value of a well built instrument.
As my wife is already cringing whenever I make mention of the travails
of the hurdy gurdy I have gone from purchase of the parts for the $20
collection of kindling to a commitment to save for a professional built
instrument. As long as I maintain myself to stories we have no domestic
strife, the dog even likes me very much. In the mean time I am content
to play with duck, buck, crow and goose calls. They make bad noises
without need of apology, are simple to operate, are within budget, and
do not require me to dress up in antique clothes. As they are plastic
the mud and dust wash off with little impact on the quality of the play.
Damage to any reputation is confined to my own. They are also fairly
easy to sneak them into business meetings.
The passion, distress and drama on this list is remarkable and causes me
all the more to have the desire to track someone down who has a
professional built hurdy gurdy and beg them to let me touch it. Possibly
even to attempt to make sound.
As to kit instruments and love my wife suggests to me that I should
build her a piano. I am not sure if I will need to learn other languages
for that but I do have the impression it may be a plot on her part to
cure me of any idea of kit building of unplayable instruments, not
unlike the situation with the stick-built airplane in the basement,
before I get around to repair the faucets on the tub.
Best,
Gabriel
Some years ago I was on the waiting list of one of Britain's leading
makers but by the time I got to the top of the list my circumstances
had changed and I could no longer afford the £1,700 it was going to
cost. At the suggestion of the maker I sold my place on the waiting
list, not for profit but to get my deposit back. The person I sold it
to got a gurdy built to their own specifications within a month, and
paid £200 less than it would have cost them for a new order; most
makers generally honour the price at which you join the waiting list.
Basicaly a good hurdy-gurdy from a good maker will either hold it's
price or have a depreciation in value that is so small as to be not
worth losing sleep over.
Of course this advice only goes for "a professional quality
instrument", not kit instruments and the kind of curiosities one often
finds on ebay.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine has a very fine Sam Palmer lute-back for
sale [with hard case]. It has been used professionaly for some years
and when I played it last week it played well. He is in London and
South of England.
