Just a note to let you all know what a great guy Phil Hardy is who makes the Kerry…I wrote to him about my discovery of the crack in my Kerry low D fipple, and he’s sending a replacement to me asap at no charge.
And, he answered me the same day-on a Sunday!
I can tell you without taking a survey, there are few companies or whistle makers who will give you anything near that kind of customer service! And this isn’t the first time I’ve heard he’s gone out of his way for a customer in a very expedient manner.
In my book, that means I will be a loyal customer of his from now on! How could you go wrong-he makes great Kerry and Chieftain whistles, at reasonable prices, and stands behind his products like more people should.
My next whistle will most likely be a Chieftain Low D. Anyone have a Brass Chieftain Low D they would like to sell? I tend to like brass best, although they are heavy.
He’s got a great website-movie/sound clips of his whistles, and an informative, and friendly forum too.
It’s nice to find good people, and when you do, they should be rewarded with your support. Thanks Phil, for who you are and how you do it!
I completely agree. Phil is such a wonderful guy to deal with. I had a problem (which turned out to be no real problem) a year or two ago with my Chieftain low D. It was a non-tunable model and it was out of tune in my group which has a non tunable accordeon as well. We all tought the accordeon was well in-tune, and the whistle was out of tune with it. I sent it back to Phil for a revoicing. It turned out that the accordeon was out of tune and the whistle had probably been dead on. So what did Phil do when he discovered that the whistle was nicely in-tune? He didn’t tell me that it was fine and ask me to stop wasting his time like I would probably have done if I was him 
Instead he sent me a tunable Chieftain low D (which is significantly more expensive) as replacement for my nontunable,
NO CHARGE!
Isn’t he the nicest guy? 
I have written Phil e-mail and he responded the next day. He seems like he really wants his customers to be happy, and is enthusiastic and polite.
A recent flyer from Lark in the Morning shows that they have a ‘limited’ supply of Chieftain “Gold” Low D’s in stock. I have a soprano ‘gold’ D and love it, but it takes a long time to warm up as it is so heavy. The low D probably takes even more time to warm up, and I’m sure will double nicely as a truncheon or crow bar!
On my high end whistles I don’t play anything then a Chieftain and just for the reasons you stated. You can tell by his music, his craftmanship, and his continued contact with fellow whistle blowers that he loves what he does and that he is in a class of his own as far as I am concerned.
In regards to the Brass Low D. Get one, you will not regret it, sure its a little heavy, but the sound and its solid build will make up for it.
Cudos to Phil!!!1
I didn’t realize they made brass whistles.
Here’s an aluminum one: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=20606&highlight=chieftain
Phil gave me my Kerry low D as a gift. I just emailed him and asked him some uqestions about it, and told him I was interested in getting one and he said he’d send one out for me to see how I liked it. I thought he meant that he would send it for me to try, and see if I wanted to buy it, so I sent him another email thanking him. Then he sent one back and said, no, keep it as a gift!!! I still can’t beleive it! I hope he knows how happy he’s made me. I’ve been playing this whistle hours every day since I got it last Tuesday!
If you’re reading this Phil, thanks a million!
Max
…Phil gave me my Kerry low D as a gift.
Oh Glauber, where are you???
How many people got the free CD last year? Very nice!
I got it, and I love it. Many interesting different styles of music , and excellent playing.
Yes, he sent me a CD with the whistle too.
There are two other CD’s available for download on his site as well. I really like all of them.
I’m not at all taking issue with Phil’s customer service, but I think maybe you need to take that survey. There are quite a few whistlemakers who offer incredible customer service. Glenn Schultz comes immediately to mind. I dropped my Bflat whistle and mucked up the mouthpiece. He repaired it within a day or two of when I sent it, and wouldn’t accept any payment, not even for return shipping, even though I pointed out that this was entirely my fault. I didn’t even buy the whistle from him, I bought it used. (I did soon thereafter buy an E from him, in part because he had been so good to me. Best decision I’d made in ages, the E is probably my favorite whistle.) This was not the only time he’d gone above and beyond the call of duty for me. David Boisvert sent me a second whistle when I had a minor issue with one. The second one cost considerably more than the first, but he wouldn’t accept payment for the difference in price. Stacey O’Gorman sent me a flageolet just because I mentioned liking them in a thread on the board.
The whistle world is blessed with many more makers who consistently do good things for their customers.
Great Chas!
The more the merrier! The whistle world just might be a little different than the real world then. Still, anytime someone shows this much consideration of his customers, we should all cheer and give them our business, and appreciate them all the more.
ps I love the Redd Foxx quote!
Not to take anything away from Phil’s service, but I think that good service from whistlemakers has been the rule, rather than the exception, of late.
Dale
Very true. Even more than service, too. Sindt comes to mind, sending out his whistles without requiring prepayment.
The whistle world is blessed with many more makers who consistently do good things for their customers.
Not only the whistle world, but the ITM world in general. Almost everyone I’ve met through ITM has been so nice! (what would I do with out this music!?)
Max
I’ve definitely got to add Mack Hoover to the list of whistle makers with outstanding customer service. At the end of September of last year, I moved from a house into an apartment and found that all of my whistles were too loud to play without disturbing the neighbors. The only times I could play was when they weren’t around.
In December, I contacted Mack about making me a quiet whistle and explained my situation to him. He said that his December list was full, but he broke his own rule and put me on January’s list even though he normally would not start that list for another few weeks. Not expecting him to start the whistle until January, I didn’t send payment right away. Then, out of the blue, a few days before Christmas, the whistle showed up in my mailbox even though I hadn’t paid for it yet.
I had told Mack the voicing I would like in the whistle, but for the $45 cost of the whistle I didn’t expect him to spend much time on custom voicing (and told him so). The whistle that arrived hit every single one of my voicing requests dead on. When I told Mack that he had gone too far above the call of duty and offered to pay more for the whistle, he said no: the satisfaction that he got in making the whistle the way I wanted was enough.
Mack is an absolute first rate guy. I now own four Hoovers and play them to the exclusion of all the others. I’ll definitely be buying more.
I have in my time been fortunate enough to deal personally with three whistlesmiths, Tony Dixon, Bernard Overton, and Stacey O’Gorman. What they all seem to have in common is a very generous nature, a passion for their products and a deep and genuine interest in the people who play them.
I don’t think it’s a competition. And I am generally reluctant to use “Best”, both because it makes it sound like a competition and because it implies I know every whistle maker in the planet well enough to make a meaningful comparison. But that’s just me - computer programmer and annoying would-be-grammarian.
I will say that I’ve had excellent service from the one whistlesmith I’ve ordered from directly, the three online shops I’ve ordered from, and helpful email exchanges with other whistlesmiths.
Not that it’s all sweetness and light out there, I imagine. But civility and good service seem to run higher in this community than the world as a whole.
I wouldn’t have guessed!
But seriously… is it difficult to obtain citizenship of Grammaria? I’m sure Amar would consider it for obvious reasons.
Gee, Gary - I’d have thought you’d be more interested in becoming a citizen of Lemuria. 