WTB Wooff D set. Exchange Williams full set possible
Also open for a D chanter made by G. Wooff
Patrick
Patrick, where are you located?
I am living in Belgium
Unfortunately, I am in the U.S. I have a Wooff D full set I might be willing to trade for something interesting or sell outright, but not without being able to play the set(s) in question.
There’s a set on eBay
Seamie,
Patrick has bought one, I assume the set mentioned by An Draighean on the Ebay thread. He paid rather a lot for it considering it is not playable currently, but he will bring the set down to me next month and I’m sure we’ll get it going again.
The set currently on Ebay is a much earlier model, made in Australia in 1987/8, it is of my first design of Narrow Bore D. Much development has happened in the interim .
I am often embarased when sellers are asking nearly the current new price for something I made 30 or more years ago. This one would have cost about $2500 AUD to the first owner.
Another gripe: I have been tempted of late to respond to questions posted on this forum but I refrained because people don’t even respond with a polite ‘thankyou’… as if it is their right to get free infomation at the click of a button.
Geoff.
Hi Geoff,
Ooops- Didn’t mean to overstep. Though not a fan of Ebay myself, just thought my post might help a fellow treasure seeker.
Best,
Seamus
No Problem Seamus, I’m no fan of Ebay either! BUT,
it gave me the ideal platform to make the comments that have been bugging me for a while.
Some years ago ( during a really mad phase) several of my sets changed hands for 150% of the then new price… ok this made me realise my prices were too low and that was the reason we were only just surviving..
Currently I am achieving more sensible prices for new sets which allows me to take more time, do a better job… I’m certainly not getting rich, but when people are selling a set ( at a huge profit ) that I made made during my hungry years, that sticks in my craw.
So as a word of warning ; don’t pay silly money for any secondhand set that is not currently playable and then expect somebody else to put it back into order for a pittance.
Good hunting.
Geoff.
Great thread,
Screen shot sent to withholding parent. Expecting, as oft said in the corporate world, a set to be “cascaded” down to yours truly.
Thanks Geoff!
And that is the ONLY reason I sold them to Patrick (and turned down other offers), because he is close enough to you and knows you well enough, to get you to set them right.
Good advice for certain; for myself, I will never again buy a second-hand set of any make that I am not able to play beforehand.
For the record, I did not set/ask any price for them; I merely accepted his first offer as tendered without quibble or bargaining of any kind. A willing buyer and seller defines the market value. And I was honest in my description of the problems with the set. Also for the record, I did not make a profit on them - I lost money due to the difference in the exchange rate from the time that I bought them. I am very glad that Patrick is happy to have them, and that you are close by and still able to set them right again Geoff.
And thank you Geoff for your information and contributions to the forum and piping in general.
Ha Ha! good job we know what that is all about eh Liam ? 
Geoff.
[quote=“An Draighean”
And that is the ONLY reason I sold them to Patrick (and turned down other offers), because he is close enough to you and knows you well enough, to get you to set them right.
For the record, I did not set/ask any price for them; I merely accepted his first offer as tendered without quibble or bargaining of any kind. A willing buyer and seller defines the market value. And I was honest in my description of the problems with the set. Also for the record, I did not make a profit on them - I lost money due to the difference in the exchange rate from the time that I bought them. I am very glad that Patrick is happy to have them, and that you are close by and still able to set them right again Geoff.
.[/quote]
That sounds very good and fair An Draighean . The set you sold is an entirely different prospect, being a ‘this century’ instrument. Patrick played the latest NBD, the one I made for Peter Laban, before it left for Co.Clare. so he knows what he wants his new baby to sound like and is very happy with his purchase.
Best regards and no slight intended,
Geoff.
I have not been on to ask questions but I do read any post that you make Geoff.
I am always pleased that you find the time to lend your expert knowledge instead of the myths that we need to rely on here. Well meaning opinions from the forum community but not the same as a respected maker chiming in.
I for one thank you!
Thanks for that Geoff, and all the best for your endeavours.
Lee
Hi All,
Not being a lot on the forum at all, I never suspected so much response to my topic. Indeed it had a good result and I found a lovely set.
Groeten,
Patrick
Yes I can imagine.
Thing is, pipe prices generally have continued to rise over the years. I don’t know when your lean years were, but an example of the price-rise is the fact that I bought a new full set, bespoke, directly from the maker, in 1986 for $1,000 US. I sold it a few years ago for $3,000 not because I was trying to cheat anybody, or because pipe buying and selling was a business venture, but because I was offered that amount, a fair and reasonable price at the time I sold them. The buyer was over the moon. (BTW $1,000 1986 dollars is $2,250 2017 dollars so my profit wasn’t all that much.)
A contrast to your situation is the highly regarded pipe-maker (not uilleann pipes) who goes through this cycle:
-
take orders and make some sets (charging 3 times what other makers charge)
-
suddenly announce his retirement from pipe-making
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start complaining that existing sets of his pipes are selling for too much
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a year or two later let word leak out that he’s not really retired from pipe-making, and is taking orders here and there
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repeat cycle.
Hello Richard,
I think $1000 for a bespoke full set in 1986 was an amazingly low figure. I made a set for one of this forum’s members in 1986 and my records show a price of $3000 ( Australian). To me that was not an outrageous price then and when one considers that the customer has played the set almost every day since, I’d estimate a cost of 27 cents per day. That is pretty cheap entertainment.
Nice story about your famous Bagpipe maker;
During my years in Australia I had several Scottish Piping friends and have heard similar tales , like the story about one Bagpipe restorer/dealer from whom one might not get the same set back after repair and he only sold Hardie’s and McDougall’s… nicely polished Pakistani’s often as not !
I don’t really mind when people achieve very high prices selling on sets I have made… it is a sort of compliment I guess.
Yes Eugene Lambe was selling full sets for 1,000 punts and practice sets for 150 punts then, considerably below other makers.
It was that combined with the precipitous fall in the value of the Irish punt to $1.01 USD which made the full set so inexpensive. If I had had any sense I would have bought ten practice sets at that time… a few years later I could have sold them for $1,000 each.
That guy sounds like a combination of two guys here. One takes deposits for new pipes but you never get your pipes, and if you send him your pipes for restoration you might not ever get them back. He’s a great maker and great restorer, if you can get anything out of him.
The other guy claimed to be a pipemaker but the pipes he claimed to make just happened to look exactly like Pakistani pipes. A couple pipers visited his “workshop” and saw pipes and parts of pipes all around, but no wood billets, no lathe, nothing to indicate any making was going on. He was unmasked and had to drop his charade.
I made a set for one of this forum’s members in 1986 and my records show a price of $3000 ( Australian). To me that was not an outrageous price then and when one considers that the customer has played the set almost every day since, I’d estimate a cost of 27 cents per day. That is pretty cheap entertainment.
Due to the state of the ozzie$ at the time I paid sterling: £1400. Mind you, that was high end of the price range at the time and I was taken aside by two senior piping figures at the '86 Willie week, separately, one to tell me I had been had by paying such an extortionate amount and the other to inform me that Wooff fella would probably take the money and disappear with it to Oz and if I did get pipes, they’d fall apart on me shortly. They never did fall apart ofcourse, although after 31 years of service the bag is now slightly leaking (still holding more air than some new pipes I have seen). Needless to say, I never regretted the purchase.
Those two comments, hilarious as they are in hindsight, do illustrate why Geoff struggled to get a price that his pipes were truly worth. Those two gentlemen presumably did believe their opinions at the time. They just happened to be wrong. You somehow recognized that (a) you would get the pipes you were promised, and (b) they would be worth every shilling when you got them. Would that we all could make choices that wisely. More money might flow to Messers Wooff and Lambe and their younger colleagues, and less to Pakistan.