Harp for Beginners: picking your harp part 2

Alright, so we're moving on to the pedal harp now. Before I got my Troubadour my parents and I had thought about whether to get a bigger lever harp or to get a small pedal harp instead. In the end we decided to go for the bigger lever harp, because back then we only really had the money for the lever harp. Pedal harps are considerably more expensive than lever harps. Sometimes you can tell why, many of them are very decorative and ornamental. The small pedal harps can exceed the amount of strings too, more than the larger lever harps do. Here, I'll show you an example. This is a pedal harp from the Lyon & Healy Company:

This harp is a Chicago Petite 40. It's a small pedal harp with 40 strings. That's a lot of strings for a small pedal harp. Every pedal harp, or at least every one that I've seen, is decorative and beautiful in some way or another. This one is 11,000$ (US). 

This guy:

Style 11 Nouveau Concert Grand pedal harp. From the same company. This guy has 47 strings, and costs 39,000$ (US). Now don't worry, not all the harps are this pricey. I know I'm harping a lot on the Lyon and Healy Company (harping, hah hah...that was bad) but there are other harps from that company that have 47 strings and are less expensive, like the Chicago Concertino. 47 strings, costs 15, 500$. Not bad. Now there is a site called the Clive Morley Harps Shop, and if you find that they have a few 40 string pedal harps to choose from. One is called the Cecelia 40 pedal harp, and it's designed for beginners:

The price is about 6,500 GBP each. That would be 10, 790$ in US dollars, and 11,830$ in Canadian dollars. So if you're looking to buy a beginners pedal harp, these would be good to look at, if you're not too troubled to pay an extra buck than you would for a bigger lever harp. If you want to save up a whole bunch of money and get one of the big pedal harps, the big golden ones, hey go for it. But when you're starting out, I recommend getting the smallest, cheapest one first. Especially if you're planning to get paid from playing the harp, then definitely get the smaller one, then you can play and get paid enough money until you decide to get a big one (and be able to carry the smaller one around easier than you would a big one). Thanks so much again for taking the time to read this, I feel honored when you do. I'll try to get these posts out often. Right now I have free time to do that, but when school comes around again they won't come out as often, but I'll try. If you have any questions guys, please, any comments or anything, please let me know, and I'll see you in my next post! That's when I'll be telling you how to work the levers, then the pedals. Whoo!