My three good harmonicas are Lee Oskars, a well-known brand among harp players. (I have three because they’re in different keys.) Lee Oskar harmonicas come in a clever little black plastic case — clever because they interlock; you can slide together whichever cases you want and carry them as a unit.
But the case to my “G” harmonica — the one I used this morning in church — has been broken for some time. Today, as a treat for having done well this morning, I decided to try to buy a new one. That will help as I tote my harps to Mountain T.O.P. in July and to Kenya in August. The Lee Oskar web site offers the replacement boxes, but they aren’t really set up for online commerce — deliberately so, since they don’t want to undermine their network of retailers. You have to print out an order form and mail it with a check, and they hold the order for 10 days until your check clears.
I have looked everywhere — Froogle, Yahoo! shopping, Shopzilla, and numerous individual online merchants — to try to find a store where I could buy the case online and get quicker delivery. The only one I found was outside the U.S., and the shipping would have cost more than the case. I posted a message on alt.music.harmonica but the only thing that’s yielded is a suggestion that I try the Lee Oskar web site — which, as explained, I already knew about.
So I guess I’ll end up sending off my order by mail and waiting a few weeks.
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