Bought my first 'harp' in 59, but the one you're looking at i got in 65 for $8 from some kids in NYC. It's a 1930 model A. In the early 1960's there was Nothing to amplify the autoharp. The best I could come up with was a
contact mic (Radio Shack??). It sounded awful but it did work, and eventually magnetic pickups for
autoharp came out by DeArmond and I got two. I ran two channels, either or both just amplified, or one or both to
effects. Playing strictly chromatic and not diatonic; microphones were of little use. Had two Gibson Maestro G2 effects units, the same that reputedly Jimi Hendrix used on several
recordings. They were great for harp, with triggered wah and fuzz, tone, percussion etc. Most
guitarists that I knew at the time thought the Maestro was garbage, but Hendrix's use of one has made
them collectors' items.
Then I fell in love. A rack mounted Eventide Clockworks phase shifter…what a beautiful sound…
a bit noisy but who cared. In today's money it ran about 4k. After that came a Lexicon Prime–Time
digital delay. That item cost the equivalent of two years rent on our NYC apartment. Then I got
really squirrelly and attached five 25 cent transducers that were surplus from a pinball machine.
Mounted those on the harp and ran them into a Linndrum sound module — allowing me more
percussion⁄drum simultaneous rhythm effects and upsetting any traditionalists that crossed
my path.
P.S. I did get a degree from Wentworth Institute of Technology at the top of my class
and won, on merit, two scholarships.
Also worked for Cannon Guild, a premier harpsichord maker in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the design
and development of the first electromechanical harpsichord. The prototype etc was then sold to the
Baldwin Piano Company and marketed as the "Baldwin Combo Harpsichord". What a surprise when
going into Bell Sound Studios in New York City several years later to record the EUPHORIA album,
sitting right there in the middle of the main recording room was one of "MY" harpsichords.
I've since learned that the Baldwin has been used by Paul McCartney and The Beach Boys, among others.