Buying a autoharp

Autoharps are the worlds simplest instrument to play. Literally you press a chord bar and strum and you have made music. Children and adults alike love making beautiful music on an autoharp. Autoharps have been around for more than 100 years in various forms. The oldest ones have 3 chord bars on them and they go up to todays top of the line models that have 21 chord bars on them. Yesteryears harps were strictly acoustic and if you wanted to play it before a live audience you had to find a way to get a pickup installed in it. Todays top of the line harps gee with pick ups pre installed and even allow you to moderate the tones you will get from them from mild to wild!
Things to look for in a used autoharp-does it have the chord bars. So many times over the years chordbars have been removed and lost. The person selling the harp may not know that it is even supposed to have the chord bars on it. The unsavy buyer buys the harp and then without having the bars has no way to play the instrument without investing $120 or more dollars buying a chord bar set for it. Not worth it if the instrument was an entry level to begin with! So please, make sure it has the chord bars attached to it. Now the chord bars have felt pads under them to dampen or mute the un-needed strings for any particular chord (that is why it is so easy to play because the instrument does all the hard work for you). You need to know if the felt pads are all there and in good shape. If not then again it will either take you a lot of time to refelt, or cost a considerable amount of money to have a luthier do it for you. Again not worth it if is an entry level instrument.
Next you want to make sure the instrument is not cracked, warped split or otherwise seriously damaged. Many times these instruments have been left in damp, warm areas and the tension on the strings has pulled the edge of the instrument up. If you are handy with glue and tools, usually not a hard fix, but manytimes the wood has shrunk and if that is the case try as you will, you will not be able to get the edge anchored back down.
Once you are sure that all the strings are there, sets of strings are $60 and up for most autoharps, and that the instrument was reasonably well taken care of you need to find out if the instrument has a case or not? No biggey if no case, but it should have at least the tuning wrench, (newer models not only have the large tuning pins but also have fine adjustment tuners-so you would need both wrenches).
What to expect to pay-well I have been watching these for the better part of a year, and the average good condition black Oscar Schmidtmodel A(which was the entry level autoharp for many years) geplete with strings and 12 chord bars goes for around $25 -$50 without a case. With case add about $10 to afore mentioned prices. Obviously 15 chord go for more and 21 chord go for substantially more.
How many chord bars do you need? Well for years the standard was 12, then 15. Someone within the last30 or so years decided to go all out and give you as much chord range as possible so hence the 21 chord models. For folks beginning to play the 12 chord will do okay, many tunes in newer autoharp books are written for the old 12 chord and you can easily transpose any that is written for any of the newer harps with few exceptions. More bells and whistles is not necessarily useful for most people. Fewer than 12 chord bars and you will not find a lot of music still available, as it limits the key range of play of the instrument.
Hopefully this guide is useful and happy hunting!