I read reviews of Noah Herbison’s beautiful looking Laughing Whistles, and was very interested in acquiring one.
Am I an acknowledged penny whistle addict when it comes to hiking, and the idea of a lovely folding whistle is very appealing to me.
Unfortunately, all of my e-mails to Noah have gone unanswered. Is there an alternate way to contact him?
If not, can someone tell me if he is still making / selling whistles?
I’m assuming you’ve tried his hotmail address, here at his web-page?
http://members.tripod.com/nherbison/
Sometimes it takes a while for Noah to respond, but the wait is well worth it.
Yes I have been trying for last 3 weeks using the Tripod address.
So far, no luck…
Sadly that’s the only contact email address I have for Noah.
Emmline got one recently…maybe she has another address? I’ll ask…
I contacted him in the fall through his website address and it took him a good while to get back to me. Apparently he was in the middle of a move and didn’t have everything set up again.
He may still be wrestling with all that, but I would assume that he’ll get back to you at some point. Unless your emails were returned as undeliverable. As of January 12th he was still taking orders.
Hope this helps.
Rod
And then of course, there’s the waiting time while the Precioussss is being forged in the fires of Mount Doom (well, Noah’s workshop). But as I said, tis worth the wait. They give you unnatural long life y’know, as well as sounding lovely. But you have to keep yer eyes open, there’s always someone with their beady eyes on it… 
I guess I will just wait then.
Thanks to all for your replies.
and if I get one and see glowing elvish script on it, I will handle it with tongs…
Sorry…I have the same hotmail.com address. The one that starts nherbison.
However, I can corroborate other reports of Noah’s tendency to not be a swift replier to emails. I’m sure he will get back to you eventually, and this is, imho, one of those charming(?) eccentricities one encounters in the world of handcrafted whistles, and it’s best to just accept it as part of the challenge of acquiring a laughing whistle. So, once he responds, go ahead and order–just be sure you double or triple the estimated time until shipping. And then, when it comes, laugh at everyone who doesn’t have a laughing whistle, and say “I did it! I did it!”
Btw, as for the telescoping thing–it does, in fact, telescope, but it doesn’t (at least not at first,) slide open and closed with the smoothness of a well-oiled machine–And then it does take a little coaxing to get the segments to line up just so when you un-telescope.
I don’t know–it could be a fun claim to fame to have elvish writing permanently branded into your palm.
I wrote to him at the end of December, and got a reply back at the end of January. (I was just checking to make sure he was still making - if he decides to get out of the business, I want to order more first.) I asked for the prices of a C and D with shipping to England. This is the information I got back:
Hello,
Sorry for the long delay getting back to you. I have been busy moving to a new town.
To order a whistle, send $75.00 U.S. per high D, $80.00 U.S. per high C whistle, by check or international money order (I also accept Pay Pal) to:
(Ava’s note…Canadian address removed for Noah’s security…PM me if you need it to place an order)
Include your mailing address, and an indication of what kind of whistle(s) you want.
(price includes shipping to the U.K.)
Best Regards,
Noah
Wow, that’s the same message he sent to ME! Several years ago!
Nice to see he hasn’t raised his prices over time, how come, I wonder?
I LOVE my laughing whistle, it surely was worth the wait, but it was a long wait!
Beth, do you still have that cute denim bag you made for your LW?
M
I just succeeded in ordering both a high and low D from him. He says his low D’s are PVC now and he feels his new design is much better. I’ll report back when I receive them… I have no idea when that’ll be, of course.
Hey guys, since some of you have them, how long is a Herbison D fully closed?
Just wondering if its worth having for the convenience.
Thanks
Wanderer’s photo will give you an idea:
http://www.tinwhistler.com/music/gallery/whistles/herbison.jpg
I don’t have one any more (having sold it to Beth a while back)…but if memory serves, I think it’s about 4" closed.
But you should really ask Beth.. I think she’s the only person in the world who owns any of his whistles any more. She has some bizzarre fetish about them
Hey! LOL. I only have two now, I had to get rid of most of my whistles this summer. But it’s the only brand that I will buy from anyone at any time without asking for pics or sound clips. Every one is different but they’re all good.
To answer the belated question from Dixie, yup I still have the denim/PVC bag. The only hard case for a collapsed whistle that I have seen. 
I believe the whistle is about 6.5 inches when collapsed to its smallest. Let me check…
OK. For one of mine, I tend to close it to between 6.5" and just over 6". The length of the first segment is 4.5", with a distance of 3 3/8" between the end of the whistle segment and the beginning of the sound works (blade, air hole etc). The middle segment is 4 1/8" and the bottom segment is 4 6/8". Open it is 11 1/2" long.
Since you can’t collapse the whistle past the sound works (the blade descends into the cylidrical whistle body), you’ve got a little over 3" of collapsing space there - or in other words, about an inch and a half that can’t be collapsed. The second segment is shorter than the third, so the third goes completely inside the second. So the overall collapsed length can’t be any shorter than the bottom segement plus about 1 1/2". That makes a minimum length of 4 6/8 + 1 4/8 = 6 2/8 or 6.25 inches.
I was just teasing about the fetish thing…
Though to be honest, I was considering asking if I could borrow one of yours to review, since I sold you mine before I started doing the formal reviewing for my site. But, knowing you’re only down to two, I won’t ask…if you were down to one, you may go into DTs 