I know Geoff Wooff was extremely pissed off a few years ago, when a customer he had just sold a set of pipes too ,sold them shortly afterwards for twice the price Geoff was paid for them. A piper I know paid 2000 euro,s for a second-hand Froment chanter at the time ,Froment was charging less than half that. Cillian O,Brien,s pipes will always get a higher price on the open market, than the maker charge,s for them.
Do you think it would a good idea if pipemakers were to abandon the whole concept of waiting lists and just make pipe,s, and as they finish them sell them on the open market to the highest bidder
It would seem to make good sense ,as it would make available the pipes of the top makers to anyone who is willing to pay for them, and it would make more for the poor impoverished pipemaker !!
I can see the sense in building a stock of sets, chanters, practise, half and full first, assuming one has the capital to do so, the selling them on the open market. Of course, once you gain a reputation, then the orders start coming infaster than you can keep up, and bang - waitlist!
One solution would be for makers to simply raise their prices according to what their sets are currently acheiving on places like E-bay. That may help to ease the rediculous price hikes that some sets command. Then as demand decreases, prices can be reduced once again - kinda like the real estate industry.
But then, I know nothing at all whatsoever about economics so my theories may well be shot down in a tiny little match-sized flame
I think the idea has merit, however, because pipe makers like Wooff, Froment and so forth already have massive waiting lists and piles of work to be done, I am afraid I do not see it happening with them any time soon.
Newer (so to speak) pipe makers without these vast lists, on the other hand, could take advantage of this. I know of one who has just decided that this is the route to take.
The idea assumes pipemakers want to make as much money quickly and as soon as possible. In my experience Geoff Wooff likes to know who he’s making a set for and tries to make the pipes suit the player. A lot of work goes into that and it’s hard work each time, in a sense each set is another ‘baby’. Satisfaction comes from seeing a good player do the set justice, it a matter of more than getting the set out the door and the money in the pocket.
No offense here Peter, but I think “My feelings are that the idea…” would be a better way of putting it. Without actually being inside the skull of a maker who would go this route, you cannot accurately state their intention.
I don’t see why the pipe maker cannot still to "specific work in addition to Rory’s proposal.
I would like to think any reputable pipemaker should have this level of customer service.
As for the “highest bidder” option… Well, what about those of us who are strapped for cash, what are we suppose to do… Not take up the pipes because we don’t have the money? Maybe not taking up the pipes is a bit exaggerated, but the fact that there are people who are.. Strapped for cash remains, I’m sure of it…
Although I understand the idea of this high bid option, so as to prevent events like what Rory talked about with Geoff Woof and such, but it seems to me that doing that would be in way, punishing everyone else, for a few jerks who wanted to make some profit off of something they really shouldn’t have. Sort of like punishing the class room, when only one kid made the mistake type deal… Pipe are expensive enough already…
But obviously what I say won’t predict how a pipemaker chooses to sell their product, (as Joseph said one pipemaker has already taken the afformentioned route) it’s just my 2 cents, and I know I’m not speaking for everybody on the matter as well.
No Joseph Rory’s proposal assumes that it would be a good idea for makers to shift pipes quickly to the highest bidder and that that makes more sense than working on order. That is exactly what he states above and asks our opinion about.
That’s the assumption, my feeling about it is that not all pipemakers will want to work this way. If they did they would have set up a productionline business shifting higher volumes instead of making the instruments they do in the way they do.
A few years ago, I suggested that idea to Davy Stephenson…
He’s a very competent pipemaker who ran into a bunch of personal problems. His workshop was closed while he took a ‘day job’ to pay some bills.
Rightly so, people are afraid to place new orders when they hear a maker takes deposits, gets behind in his work and cannot deliver any orders.
However, when a used Stephenson set comes available, it usually gets sold quickly.
I haven’t heard from Davy in a while… it must have been some time last year he was planning to reopen his workshop. I know he did some tooling regarding a reed making machine but I don’t know if he’s back to pipemaking. Has anyone been to his workshop of know if he’s started making pipes again?
I can understand why he would have been upset. If “getting a piece of the pie” is a pipemaker’s concern, then I think the pipemaker should consider how to increase his or her output.
From the standpoint of producing instruments one at a time, and when ready, sell them is an idea I like, but not to the highest bidder. As you pointed out, it could provide incentive to rush things and ignore attention to quality. Maintaining their current prices would have to be the order of the day.
There’s really no way to stop folk from ordering a set, buying it and then selling it on the open market for what ever they can get for it… build a better mouse trap, somebody’s sure to build a better mouse, and so on. One could instigate an interview process, but even that can be foiled.
I think both Rory and Peter are correct. In order for UPs to become a commodity that trades at current market prices, there needs to be a large group of pipemakers who turn out a steady supply of sets that are all the same. There will always be a niche market for artisan pipemakers who will be very expensive and will turn out custom work according to their own personal ethic.
The above arrangement would satisfy the needs of both rich and poor pipers. However, the current situation is that we only have artisan pipemakers (unless you want to count the Pakistani makers as your mass-market alternative ). This means that the pipemakers work to their own ends, and wanna-be pipers must pay the cost, both in waiting times and money.
I do not believe that there is currently enough of a market for UPs to make a mass-market product of acceptable quality a worthwhile venture.
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The real problem here is one of perception. People come from a world where instruments such as guitars or fiddles or whistles are almost ubiquitous and a playable instrument is affordable. They come waltzing into the UP world expecting the same - and they get a nasty shock.
I hate to say it, but UPs are still a rather exclusive world. At one time it was due to lack of interest. Now it is is due to a lack of supply, but I don’t think demand is great enough yet to tip the scales. Maybe in a few more years …
Pipemakers with waiting lists of several years? no
Recent makers have no other option.
They show up at a tionol with a few finished sets and spark interest for future sales and quick sales of the sets they have built. Sometimes, they cannot sell the sets they show because they are needed as samples for future orders.
No need to get pissed off, it’s the prerogative of the owner to sell the product if he or she chooses to do so. (Wait) time is money. In a way, this person was just cashing in on that temporal investment. How does a maker feel if their customer gets “pissed off” at having to wait so long for a set of pipes? If a maker wants this kind of control over their product, they should never sell it in the first place.
every maker has their own personal circumstances that relate in some shape or form to their profession. Some boys need to turn out kits to pay for their families, homes, etc. Some have large waits, some wait lists borderline on an absurd length of time,others not so much etc. Some take deposits, some do not or will not. Tis a myriad of combinations. I believe it does the maker no good for people to take a new kit and sell it for more, but there’ll no one to police that and good or bad ethics, be that as it may…it will happen. I once heard an instrument collector say of an 1883 Jefferies, “I can’t afford to keep this!”
I remember when riverdance hit, and all these people who “like music” and are “technically inclined” lured by the machine-like aspect of how the pipes look when played, purchased pipes/got on waiting lists. I can’t imagine those people that got the instrument held on to it that long. There’s also the idea that if the demand will support a price asked, someone is bound to ask the price and move the peice.
I say this neither in defense, nor as an attack, but my guess is that there’s more to the story than the raw facts of; “he got a woofe set and then sold it for twice as much.”
I’m a novice piper that doesn’t know shoite about pipemaking, but I have several friends that are artists/artisans and there is a considerable amount of their creative “soul” if you will, that goes into their work. Part of their art is crafting their work for a particular client. They pour their heart and soul into a piece in hopes that the client it’s intended for will come to love it as well. Spending years on something, just for the client to turn around and sell it for a quick buck (based on the notariety of the artisan) is nothing short of betrayal.
I would’ve been pissed too.
Brazenkaine makes a good point tho… we don’t know the “rest of the story.”
A maker who wants to make more money would probably be better, in the short term anyway, selling on eBay instead of having a long waiting list. However, if they wanted to be rich, they should have studied dentistry or married well.
In the long term, a pipemaker’s reputation would probably suffer if he abandoned the personal approach of making for individual pipers.
It’s the nature of piping: we’re all in gutter looking up at the stars. As someone recently pointed out on another thread, the Taylor Bros died in poverty and Seamus Ennis lived his final years in a mobile home. These are our role models, but we don’t think about the poverty that they knew. We prefer to think about their legacies. We’re not in it for the money.
I think that it has to be the pipemaker’s decision obviously which niche of the market they try to fill. Several makers have made efforts to provide a more affordable practice set into the hands of aspiring pipers in addition to their other offerings; Rogge’s polyacetal, Stephenson’s ‘student’ chanter and Pipemakers of Boston for example, and it’s certainly a valid approach. Selling on e-Bay is fine, but so is the idea of down payments and waiting lists. For some, the certainty(?) of a wait list and a downpayment is a more comfortable way to go due to planning and working capital considerations. For others, this may not be an issue.
Personally, I don’t mind the wait for the set I have on order for a couple of reasons; it gives me time to accumulate the money for final payment, and it gives me more time to work with my current practice set so I might be in a better position to take advantage of a well-made instrument. (I believe Ennis was right about the practice thing!)
Not to a bollox who comes in to chat and tells you how he loves your pipes and all that only to sell them off ASAP in any case.
Given the strife the finishing of a set gives some makers I think they are entitled to have their effort treated fairly. You take away someone’s baby and you flog it off immediately to the highest bidder.
Twenty years ago I sold two sets of pipes, a Eugene Lambe D and a Robbie Hughes C to a man who came for the D first and then started buttering me up how he loved the C and how he loved having that as well and the wife being pregnant so he was skinned but he really wanted to play and all that sort of stuff. I ended up selling both sets at around the price I paid for them, equivalent of €800 each in today’s money. Within two weeks the D set was sold for 1500 and the C went a few month later for around the same. I seriously felt pissed off at how your man arrived to play a few tunes, weazeling in on the my confidence and trust and eventually pulled a fast one. I can very well imagine how a maker, who after all puts in the actual work, sweat and worries, feels even more pissed off. And I remember that Wooff set well and how things around that developed. It was all ‘I am a professional musician and I need it fast’ and special this and that and by the end of the day it was up on offer on the net with in three weeks of Geoff posting it off.
). This means that the pipemakers work to their own ends, and wanna-be pipers must pay the cost, both in waiting times and money.