I respresent a Uilleann Pipes manufacturer from Spain called Hevia, Parrado, Y Aragon primarily in Ireland and the UK but hope to expand to other countries.
The company have been manufacturing Uilleann Pipes for a number of years but are starting to break inot the Irish market at the moment. They released a new stainless steel model which has been given very favourable feedback.
We have just presented our products at the national Tional in Ireland run by Na Piobrai Eireann and got excellent feedback from some very notable players.
They commented that the pipes were very well made, have very stable drones, the regulators had a very sweet sound and had excellent key action. They felt that the pipes were very easy to get used to and overall were a very solid set that you could be confident with.
Check out more info on the website for more details as I would be happy to go into more details if anyone is interested. We are focussing on trying to top quality instruments without the tedious waiting period.
According to the Currency Converter , the price for a practice set is just over $1,800, just drones alone is well over $2000 , thats outragious… a half set is $3,971 , a chanter alone is over $1200, pipe bags are $200, a full set is 8,510.17, bellows are $467.19 .. Is their something wrong with the currency converter ,or does this company finish their pipes with gold laquer with diamond dust… I think I will probably stick to my well known pipemakers…
Thanks for the response…the pricing is actually similar to pricing from other manufacturers in Ireland and for a full set is cheaper than the the top sets.
The problem is of course the currency exchange rate which has been running at around $1.30 for the past year. This makes the pipes expensive compared to if you are purchasing from a US manufacturer.
Thats business though and we can’t influence the monetary exchange rates. By the way the pipes are polar opposites to pakistani pipes
Well you heard it from the Maker, If your in North Averica its better to buy from a Pipemaker in the North America because of the exchange rate, unless you want to spend high $$$$$, We got Seth Galagher, Tim Britton, Pat Sky, B.C. Childress, David Daye, Nick Whitmer, Michaeal Dow, David A. Boisvert, C.J. Dixon, Michael MacHarg, Neil O’Gradey, Did I miss anybody…
It would appear that www.instrumentsoftradition.com has a healthy markup considering that they charge 1,350 Euro for a Hevia practice set with a c nat key… when one can buy the same set directly from Hevia for 1,043 Euro.
If you take a look at Hevia’s website, the price for their keyless practice set is 929.31 Euro (That’s $1,241 US Dollars).
It doesn’t seem to me that Hevia is that far out of line with their prices… if you buy direct from them.
The Hevia price does not include VAT (Value Added Tax) but the www.instrumentsoftradition.com price does. That seems to accounts for the larger part of the difference.
Not sure how that affect you in the USA
Yes, a very annoying site. I liked the “Jukebox” though.
I’m in Canada. The CA$ has not been affected by the drop in the US$. I still find your sets very expensive. For instance CA$9,200 for your standard fullset and CA$2,200 for your practice set.
In comparison:
Chris Bayley practice set CA$1,150
Andreas Rogge practice set CA$1900
Ray Sloan practice set CA$1650
Marc Van Daal practice set CA$1550
Marcus Coulter practice set CA$1850
Chris Bayley Full set CA$4,150
Andreas Rogge Basic Full set CA$7500
Marc van Daal full set - CA$6450
In fact, your basic full set (CA$9200) is CA$200 more expensive than a delux Rogge full set (CA$9000)!!
I have heard good things about the ARHPA pipes, but regardless, it makes sense to buy from a reputable maker near you or at least in the same country - otherwise you run into problems with overseas shipping costs, customs, time in transit, communication costs, CITES, … etc. etc.
Paying VAT (or sales tax) depends on whether the maker or seller exceeds certain thresholds. In Canada it’s CA$30,000 p/a. I don’t know if many Canadian makers exceed this amount.
By the way, in the list of N-American makers, did you mention Joe Kennedy?
No offense to the pipemakers listed above, but of the initial list, I would think Joe Kennedy’s pipes are better than at least four, probably five of those mentioned.
And CJ Dixon, as far as I know, does not make more than bags and bellows, yet. (Although I still counted him one of the four)
Oh, and Mike McHarg also does not make uilleann pipes (at least I don’t think he does any more… Again, I counted him, too)
One point made above with which I strongly agree is that the middlemen do nothing but harm. They raise the prices of pipes without offering anything in return.
