>>About - Our Pitch - Our Raison d’Etre

No fuss, no hassle, no border surprises....
Now you can buy the harp of your dreams with
confidence as we ship from coast to coast to coast

We have found that there is a real need for Canadians to be able to choose from a selection of playable, enjoyable folk harps right here in Canada and to accept delivery without any financial surprises in a reasonable period of time. That is why West Coast Harps exists - our reason for being - our raison d’être.

We may be a small business but we are big on service and huge on satisfaction.

Some of the benefits of purchasing a harp from West Coast Harps are listed below on this page in a simple straight forward manner. Like the rest of this website, we list everything out in detail as we know that making a momentous decision like buying a harp is not easy. Nor should it be as this is an intensely personal decision. Our intent is to inform, thereby making your choice easier, less stressful and more appropriate to both your needs and desires.

Many first-time harpists do a lot of research, comparison pricing and become quite expert on the “web” side of finding a harp. After years of selling harps, we now know that West Coast Harps offers additional services not otherwise found in the typical Internet Folk harp buying experience. Read more about our service below.....

Our Pitch
   Playable, Well Fitting & Nice Sounding Harps
   Detailed Descriptions with Full Disclosure
   Detailed Quotes to the Penny
   We Handle the Shipping Issues – All of Them
   Remote Canadian Destinations
   Have a Victoria Vacation & Choose Your Harp
   In the Harp World You Tend To Get What You Pay For
   Our Last Word - Orphan Harps

>>About - Our Pitch

Playable, Well Fitting & Nice Sounding Harps
Alison Vardy of West Coast Harps often says that there are three important considerations when buying a harp – the look, the feel and the sound.

The “look” is captured well in our images on each individual harp model page. Certain harps just look right to certain people. It is important to like the look of your harp and to proudly reflect your joy in ownership when playing.

The “feel” refers to the harp's feel under the fingertips and against the body. All the new harps that Alison stocks are selected on the basis that they are instruments she enjoys playing. The string tension usually varies from light to medium with a few higher tension models also being stocked. All the models are of good voice and have relative ease to play. Some harps work well with smaller players and others are best for taller players.

The "sound" of the harp is important too. Alison often auditions different models over the phone so a prospective buyer can get a sense of the sound differences. The differences may be subtle but they can be discerned. It is important to know that the sound of a harp “ripens” as it is played. Our harps sound even better with lots of playing time.

It is important to call Alison and have her assist you with your final decision making process. Her depth of experience both as a performer and a teacher is invaluable in finding the “right” harp.

• Our harps are a joy to play
• Quality harpmakers
• Professional advice
• Professional service
• Telephone listening auditions
• Tuned up harps – seasoned in our studio, ready to play

As said earlier, every harp is a compromise. Which compromise works well for you? Let Alison help you find out - that is our foremost service.

Detailed Descriptions with Full Disclosure
Each harp model that we sell has its own page dedicated to all the details we can list about the harp including a series of images of the harp highlighting its physical features. You will see Alison playing each harp to give a visual sense of the harp's size [Alison is 5'4” tall]. If an individual harp varies from its model image series we create a special page for it to show the differences.

With used harps we give complete disclosure of any known defects as included in the images. We offer a limited warranty for the used harps that we own outright. It is very rare to find a nice sounding, playable used floor harp for much less than CAD$2000 so as a result we usually only sell new harps [with a full warranty] starting for just a few hundred dollars more.

Detailed Quotes to the Penny
Our Email Quotes are well detailed with all your actual costs and savings itemised. What is important to understand is there are no hidden surprises for your bank account [or your spouse]. You know to the penny what you will pay and we give you a grace period to make up your mind as to what you feel is best for you.

• No financial surprises
• No hidden brokerage fees
• Just GST/HST for most Canadians

We Manage the Shipping Issues – All of Them
We manage all the shipping for you and carry all these attendant risks ourselves. We do not dropship from the USA, [except for the "no Frills Harpsicle Harp Series"] so all the stock you buy from us is shipped direct from our studio in Victoria BC Canada. We use a custom Canadian shipper who specialises in carrying delicate goods like perfumes, professional carbon fibre racing cycles, kayaks and insulated dry ice chests full of ice cream confections. The goods arrive safely and on time.

We take extra care with our packaging by either ordering our own double wall boxing or by adding additional layers to triple wall the manufacturer's existing packaging. For our larger harp sales we use our own two way returnable shipping chests to give your harp the best ride possible. We ship from terminal to terminal only, thereby preventing any handling mistakes during a final delivery in the field [It is a common complaint for USA couriers to abandon shipments including harps at the door as it is more cost-effective overall for them to abandon and accept insurance claims later rather than return on a second delivery attempt].

We fully insure our harps against loss, theft and damage with some stated exceptions at the time of purchase. We use heated vans in the winter and do not ship during heat waves [No carrier or courier insures against climatic extremes]. None of the USA carriers nor suppliers provide this hands-on Canadian specific service.

Shipping is usually the largest source of difficulty when buying a harp. Few carriers will handle harps, even fewer will insure them. Shipping is the primary source of pricing variability and hidden costs encountered with any do-it-yourself importation of a harp. You just will not know your total cost of the importation until you have physically received the harp and have paid all the final border charges. There will be additional and often expensive brokerage and you will pay all federal sales taxes plus PST and QST with all USA importations. A percentage of shipments will also have up to 14% duty misapplied and it can take up to six months to get your application refunded from the Canadian Receiver General. Our shipments are only across Provincial boundaries and cannot incur any out of BC provincial sales taxes nor accidental duties . Our Email Quotes are predictable to the penny.

Canada Customs also on occasion opens an imported harp's packaging for inspection and the USA couriers often neglect to reseal them properly. In our first year alone, we had 2 out of our first 12 shipped harps significantly damaged [17% breakage rate] by a USA courier used by one USA based supplier. We select our Canadian shippers with great care and have a 100% success rate.

• No brokerage to pay
• No Canada Customs inspection mishaps
• No misapplied duty [six months to refund]
• Great packaging
• Two way shipping chests
• Insured
• Heated vans
• No dropshipping [except for the "No Frills Harpsicle Series"]
• Hands-on shipping service managed by West Coast Harps
• A gentler shipping ride overall for your harp
• A tuned & inspected harp ready to ship from Victoria BC Canada

Remote Canadian Destinations
West Coast Harps will find a way to get a harp to you. On occasion we will ship Ravenna 26's by Greyhound Express [weather permitting in unheated shipping] to more remote locations in Western Canada. West Coast Harps may also use alternate air carriers to locations in Northern Canada including the Yukon, The Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

Have a Victoria Vacation & Choose Your Harp
A number of West Coast Harps would-be-purchasers elect to visit Victoria on Vancouver Island, have a few harp lessons with Alison, test play all our harps, partake in the fine dining and see the world class attractions available on the West Coast. Victoria BC is regularly rated in the top ten "must visit" island destinations in North America. Returning home with a perfect harp chosen is simply a divine culmination for an already great trip. We normally ground ship your chosen harp to the major centre closest to you as the extra airline baggage costs can be prohibitive.

In the Harp World You Tend To Get What You Pay For
There are no free rides in the harp world. Harps are expensive and time consuming to make. The average professional harpmaker or luthier works with a very slim profit margin and has limited production capability. All harpmakers understand that their peers also work with similar constraints. As a result there is very little “specialing” of professionally made harps. Instruments of a similar quality tend to be of a similar price. This makes for a stable industry where you generally get what you pay for and your professionally made harp tends to retain its value over time.

The biggest differences in the harp business are to be found in design, service and ease of acquisition. That is why West Coast Harps exists. We identified a critical need for a variety of harps to be made available to interested Canadians for an affordable price, in a timely fashion without all the attendant shipping or border issues.

Our Last Word - Orphan Harps
Not all harps are made professionally. Some are made by amateur woodworkers who know how to make wood beautiful yet know nothing about the physics of a nice sounding, playable harp. We have heard strings that “thud” on such harps. Look for harpmakers who have made a dozen or more harps already as their designs are more likely to be successful. We prefer to only stock professionally made harps - new, used or consigned.

Harp making methods and technologies have progressed tremendously in the last fifteen years as the North American harping interest has expanded. Some earlier folk harps, even those made by long established companies, were not particularly well designed rendering them obsolete with poor sound, bad weight-to-size ratios or lesser playability. These outdated harps are simply not enjoyable to own and are best described as hard to sell “orphans”. As a result these harps may end up on eBay alongside the cheap but usually unplayable carved rosewood harps from Pakistan.

As said earlier there are no free rides in the harp world. You tend to have any two of these three choices but usually not all three – cheap, beautiful or playable. Any larger used floor harp priced much below CAD$2000 must be considered to be a cheap deal. It is your guess as to which remaining choice applies - either beautiful or playable. It is unlikely to be both. It might be neither.

Every harp is a compromise. Which harp is right for you? Let us help – that is our foremost service.