I have been accepted into the Hohner Affiliated Customizer program. What does this mean? It means that I have joined Joe Filisko and Joe Spiers as the 3 customizers in the United States who are recognized by Hohner as world class customizers.

Joe Filisko inspired the creation of this program and makes the call about who qualifies to be in the program.

This has been a major change for me. I have resisted publicly announcing my inclusion in this program until I felt I was ready. This meant completely re-structuring my business, and reviewing every aspect of how I build harmonicas. I subjected everything I thought I knew about customizing harmonicas to review, learned a lot, and made numerous improvements in the quality of the harps I build and the way I build them.

Under the terms of this program I buy parts direct from Germany and I can choose whatever combination of reed plates, cover plates, and other parts for building harmonicas. I chose the Marine Band Deluxe and Thunderbird cover plates, Marine Band Deluxe and T-bird reed plates, and the Special 20 as my focus for building.

I came up with a design for the M.B. Deluxe and T-bird that has the key stamped into the reed plate and the cover plate cut away to make the key stamp visible. This is a nod to the original “mouse ear” Marine Band  cover plates made in 1896.

I now have an inventory of modified cover plates, reed plates, and black acrylic combs made to my specs. I’m ready to rock! I’ve got more descriptions in the store here as well as the tab in the menu about custom harmonicas.

Harpe Diem!