[TPIN] Potential good news at Bach

[Michael Anderson]

John,

I'm looking forward to meeting you as well. Yes, I was surprised by the
price. I wish I had been thinking about it enough to question it and ask
what the true selling point will be. I was more focused on grilling him
about what is going on at Bach.

If they sold this horn for $500 or less it would be a tremendous bargain.

A friend owns a music store and he is selling beginner instruments from
"Palm Winds" which is a distributor for a chinese company. The trumpets sell
for $249 and are every bit as good, if not better, made as the yamaha's
which go for $649. People "rent to own" these and end up paying around $1000
for a horn that doesn't last long before there are problems or expensive
repairs. The Palm Winds horns are selling in his area like hot cakes.
Perhaps decent quality inexpensive horns like this will help more kids start
band and stay in band?

Another interesting factor on the Eastman I didn't mention is that it is
made in a new factory that was originally set up by Jupiter. Jupiter pulled
out at the last minute for some reason and Eastman bought the whole thing...
So, perhaps the tooling and what not are Jupiter.

MA


> From: John Miller <jsm at n4vu.com>
> Organization: Pan-Galactic Consulting
> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:50:45 -0400
> To: Michael Anderson <manderson at okcu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [TPIN] Potential good  news at Bach
> 
> (emailed, not posted)
> Michael Anderson wrote:
>> A former Conn-Selmer/Bach rep in our area who lost his job as a result of
>> brook mays going under is now working for Eastman which is a chinese company
>> that has specialized in string instruments for sometime  I guess. He has a
>> pro-line trumpet with him made in their new factory that played and looked
>> quite good. The price was $1050. It was silver with gold trim and had
>> everything on it a strad does. Maybe this was the pick of the litter, but it
>> seemed like a perfectly good trumpet in the short time I held it and played
>> it.
>>   
> Hi, Michael --
> I was delighted upon registering for the Atlanta Trumpet Festival to see
> that you would be one of the clinicians.  Looking forward to meeting you.
> 
> Interesting choice of price point on the part of Eastman -- they have a
> lot of flexibility, if my experience with other Chinese manufacturing is
> any indication, and could have put it a good bit lower, but I'm not sure
> I would have done any different, had it been my decision.  It'll be
> interesting to see what the street price will be.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> -- 
> John Miller
> Director, Peachtree Wind Ensemble
> Georgia
> 
>