The recent topic posted by Glands concerning the sale of his K&Q 3/4 set (less chanter) has highlighted a deep divide amongst the users of this discussion board: those who are willing to pay anything for a good set of pipes and those who get irate with those willing to pay anything.
I find myself in the second group. I would go so far as to say that unless you are a professional piper, making your living from playing the music, you have no business spending more than $6000 on a full set. Why? Because it’s immoral to spend that much money on something that is not essential in making your living. In addition, it raises the cost of instruments beyond the range at which most of us can affoard. Those who have money (but not necessarily skill) buy up good instruments with the result that those who have the skill (but not necessarily the money), either have to over-extend themselves to acquire an instrument which is at the same level as their skill, or make do with an inferior instrument.
I don’t think what I am proposing would affect the overall quality of the pipe making as the majority of pipemakers are not full time pipemakers but have day jobs and pipe making is a passion for them.
Yet another person who thinks serious artists should be paid a pittance because they enjoy their work, even if it is rather difficult. Are you the new head of the NEA?
I allways compare our piping economics to other instruments - a fiddle player have the option of getting a good playable fiddle for about the amount of a practise set - if he wants a better instrument he can allways look for a strad or something like that. And that would cost him a bit more than a quality full set. Pipes are really not that expensive when comparing with other hand made instruments… Quality and price usually go very well together
I think that " Supply and Demand" do weigh heavily here.
If a pipemaker has been producing pipes for a while, and is good at what he does..he reserves the right… according to quality, availability of materials(or scarcity), and workload to charge what he see’s fit. If a pipeplayer wants to buy $6000+ it’s really his business, he’ll just have to explain it to his ( if she still is his wife by the time she finds out)
I don’t entirely disagree with you, but every pipemaker doesn’t entirely follow each others prices to a “T”, but does drive up availability and wait times, unless you can EBAY or have a “connection”.
A Stradivarius costs a bit more than a quality full set? And the prise for understatement of the year goes to … Morten.
Do you know how much a Stradivarius costs? You’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars - most musicians who play Stradivarius instruments do not own them. In most cases, the instruments belong to foundations, trusts, museums, etc and are loaned to exceptional musicians.
Yes the price of a decent set can indeed be daunting. Some dilettantes can afford to buy them, hardly play, and see them as mere investments while there are other dilettantes who dabble, are passionately interested, scrape and save, make sacrifices/prioritise, in order to get a set. Then there are the collector’s that have several sets of pipes locked away, saving them as historical artifacts prehaps, or preventing serious musicians from playing music on them, opinions vary on the role of museums/collectors.
On the other hand a new set of pipes are cheaper than your average new car, are safer, and should last a lot longer. I was amazed though about Glands wanting 7250 USD for his K&Q delrin drones & a couple of regs, but then there are maybe people out there that would gladly/can/are desperate enough to/ pay so much. I was lucky enough to buy my set in 1980 when they were more affordable for yer averge joe. By the way I think that K&Q appear to be making good, quality instruments, and their owners seem to be well pleased with them, so fair enough, more power to their elbows. Pat your new D set is sounding good, can I have your old Wooff C set please? Gwan, gwan gwan
I agree that most sets that are batted around here are priced well beyond what the average joe can responsibly purchase. There are sets out there though, of which I’ve heard nary a complaint, that are priced sometimes half of what we’re talking about
Bruce is under $4K for a full set (last I checked)
Tim rebuilds full sets for $2600
Patrick Skye offers a half set for $2300
I’m not sure what Neil O’Grady charges, but his full sets are sold beside Bruce’s at www.songsea.com
There were a couple more I ran across when I was pricing my full set purchace, but escape me at the moment…the point is, they are out there.
And hopefully, in the coming years as we each finish our respective plans, both David Daye and my “brass-chanter-full-set-version” will offer the industrious inexpensive full sets (I’m hoping for my plans to produce one for under $100…so far I’ve got two working chanters for under $35 combined)
Welcome to the not necessarily fair world of supply and demand…
Even at $12,000 for a super-premium full set, its still relatively cheap compared to other hobbies like general aviation, sailboats, horses, etc. I’d love to buy Lewis’ 3/4 rig, and if I didn’t just have to buy a Kubota tractor to maintain our land, I probably would, even if it seems insane.
Not that my opinion counts fer much, but I recently sold my lovely Larrivee L-10 SE on EBAY so that I can then order my half set upgrade. I decided that if I’m going to persuse any one instrument, it will be Uilleann pipes.
Not to mention, if ya want cheap, you can get a set of new Dunbar P-3’s for like $600.00-$700.00 if you really shop…
Oh, those are GHB…
We all need the folks who have more money than ability. Having them them involved benefits everyone because they keep the makers in business, they buy the CDs, they pay the tuition for schools, they keep the ministry of tourism happy in the old sod, they attend the concerts, and they buy Peter’s beautiful photos. And when the gobby-o about pipes is all said and done, they blow the pipes up to have a tune and… it’s still their fingers on the chanter.
If it’s between a fine set of pipes or a fine set of fingers, I’ll take the fingers every time. World class sets of pipes are easier to come by than world class fingers.
Personally, I feel uilleann pipes are well priced. But I also feel teachers should be as well paid as doctors, lawyers and politicians because they are just as important to a healthy society.
Yeah, the tone of that conversation was a little off-putting, but it’s not a reflection on the effort pipe makers put into their instruments. If I was a pipemaker I’d be a little put off by someone cashing in on my expertise by taking advantage of my hard won reputation, but all successful artists suffer that fate.
My old oboe would cost about as much as a full set from most mid-priced makers now.
My fiddle player’s violin costs early as much as my house.
That said, It’s a shame that there aren’t more options for the budget-impaired. I’m pretty well resigned to the notion that I will NEVER be able to afford regs.
I am in the former opinion, that a good set of pipes is underpriced at $12 - $15k. Looking at it a few ways:
a) Life of pipes – could be 150 to 200 years if they are cared for.
b) Skill of instrument makers who have mastered three arts (metalergy, woodwork and leatherwork) AND combined them to make an agreable sound.
c) Cost per hour spent by the pipemaker, plus the cost of capital, design development and experience.
d) Sheer joy that one gets from a good set of pipes.
e) Cost of Pipes over the time spend playing them. 45 minutes a day for five years on a $10k set of pipes is $12. We pay that much for terrible movies don’t we.
Most pipers play the whistle as well. Perhaps if you areage the cost of say a $15 susato whistle with a K&Q $7500 set, you have two instruments which are averaging about $3757. Sounds much better like that doesn’t it!
I here that a full set takes about 300 hours to produce. What is a fair wage for a master craftsman? At $30 per hour in the US, the cost should be $9000 before materials. I think that this issue in addition to the other inate fundemental intricacies of this instrument keep us in fairly small company. I am very comfortable with that. There are way to many highland pipers out there!
Who doesn’t appreciate the optimist? Well said, Inis Fada.
I’ll go one further: If you add in the cost of a Burke Low D whistle to your musical collection, and say you spend $200 for it, you’d then have THREE nice musical instruments for an average cost of $2,756.67 (US$).
If we are truly looking as supply and demand as the driving force of pipes pricing then there is no logic to say that they are underpriced at $12-15k. They are and should be priced at the level that people are willing to pay for them. Reasoning like that Virgil can only serve to artificially inflate prices which does not benefit the piping community on the whole. (also I plan on living 150-200 years but I’m not sure the Big Guy Upstairs is gonna let me! )
There was a certain fellow in Woodstock Ontario (who is not Joe Kennedy but whose initials are Dennis O’Reagan), who several years back decided to teach himself how to make pipes. I paid a visit to him one time to discover that he was selling absolute “shite” for the going rate of sets by established pipemaker’s. My point here is Virgil, that if you say Pipes should be worth $12-15 k then everyone will want to charge that rate. Better to let things progress as they have been going by having each pipemaker prove his/her worthiness and then charge what people are willing to pay.
Paul
P.S. Joe Kennedy was one of the unfortunates who bought a set from Dennis O’Reagan, found it to be unplayable and then took up pipemaking for himself! So…happy ending for us I guess.
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