Is Jerry Freeman okay with all this mess going on right now? I’d ordered a Mellow Dog from his listing on eBay back on March 3rd, and sent him a message on March 26, but never heard back. With everything going on I hope he’s safe. Anyone know?
If this is a faux pas to ask, mods feel free to delete.
He is active on Facebook (last activity 11 hrs ago). You could try contacting him through his FB-page.
I ordered and paid for a whistle that he had advertised as in stock earlier this year; no word and no whistle from him, after a month or two I inquired about it via eBay messaging (where I bought it) and the only response was he refunded my money.
AFAIK he keeps no stock. It’s all made to order. And I guess he has a long waiting list and, like many makers/tweakers is notoriously bad with communication. (honestly, I like what he does but it’s not for me. I never saw the point of this whole tweaking thing)
Thanks for posting this. I am also waiting for a Mellow Dog that I ordered on March 11 and haven’t heard back from a PM I sent. I suppose I’ll keep waiting.
Well, I may be guilty of putting words in his mouth. His exact words were that the whistle(s) I wanted “are available again”, which I took to mean (incorrectly?) that they were in hand, i.e. in stock.
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/cp-freeman-tweaked-bnat-generations-are-available-again/101706/1
I thought it was the Bluebird whistles that became available again. So I ordered and received then made second order which I’m still waiting.
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/cp-freeman-bluebirds-are-back/101695/1
He wrote on Facebook once that he doesn’t really “keep a stock” of whistles. But I guess sometimes he has one ready and no buyer. But most of the time he tweaks them once somebody orders one. It seems that many makers/tweakers these days have a huge backlog of orders. Chris Wall for example had to even stop taking orders altogether AFAIK at the end of last year. And some have waited about a half year for a whistle from Chris Wall.
I still hope that one day Jerry will make a whistle of his own like he is planning for years. I’d be all over that one.
I thought for Jerry “available again” meant he had figured out a way to make that “model” whistle again using the mass-produced whistles available to him to work with.
I’ll go ahead and confirm that he is a terrible communicator as well. Nice guy and good whistles but bad with customer service. He blamed the Canadian postal service for two whistles I purchased from him showing up with dents in the tubes from clattering against each others fipple. That was just bad packaging. When I tried several times to contact him about the fipple of another whistle I purchased from him sheering in half; just to let him know what happened, he never responded.
I wouldn’t take it personally if he doesn’t get back to you, it’s just his way.
Yes, he had some models he wasn’t making because the stock whistles he used were in such poor shape that it was getting really hard to work with them. I guess he found better stock, so he’s offering them again, made to order.
He also has some health issues that interfere with his production, so he often doesn’t have a lot of completed whistles on hand. I have similar health issues so we’ve discussed treatment options and suchlike.
He’s also now involved with people pursuing COVID-19 treatment options (his wife is a doctor) which is taking up a lot of his time. So he’s OK, just juggling a lot of stuff right now given all that’s going on.
And he’s much easier to communicate with via facebook if you’re on there.
He mentioned to me that his health issues pretty much shut him down last summer, but that they’ve been resolved, at least to the point that he’s back in action. As one might imagine, he’s had a lot to keep himself busy with since on the whistle-tweaking front alone, never mind his COVID-19 work.
In any event, I just got an e-mail from him a few days ago saying that he’d finished tweaking a couple of whistles for me, so yes, he is definitely still around and tweaking.
Yes: I’ve corresponded with quite a few people on the “getting an instrument and making it work” side of the whistle world, and with the majority of them, it’s taken numerous attempts to get any reply, sometimes even if it’s a reply to them asking me a question. I’m not sure why this is difficulty is so widespread, but it does seem to be a general thing. On the other hand, without exception, all have been quite pleasant to deal with when they do eventually get back to me.
And this isn’t life-or-death for me, these are individuals that I’m corresponding with (rather than company staffers), and I respect them and don’t want to be a pest. So I’ve just accepted that I’ll need to nudge them every two weeks or so (longer for Jerry, knowing the above), and as long as they don’t take that personally, I won’t take their slow responses personally. It’s inconvenient, and I’d rather it were otherwise, but as far as I can tell, this just seems to be the way of things.
That said, the existence of this thread suggests that it would be appreciated by many in the whistling community if people did respond faster, if for no other reason than that we wouldn’t worry about them as much!!
There’s a legendary and reclusive maker of guitar amps, Howard Alexander Dumble. A Dumble amp can go for tens of thousands of dollars.
Supposedly you have to sort of apply to Mr. Dumble. You send him emails humbly expressing your desire for an amp, and if he approves he agrees to make one, but the agreement stipulates:
"Never ask about the progress of your amplifier. If you do, I will stop building it.
If you piss me off, I may keep your deposit and never build your amplifier.
You cannot come to my shop and watch your amplifier being built. Come by my shop unannounced and I will:
a) Stop building it
b) Keep your deposit."
I have a flute on order and it has been strongly suggested that I not inquire about the progress. I can certainly understand why inquiries like that would be a huge PITA
This thread didn’t get my attention until I happened to exchange email with a fellow whose order is apparently about seven weeks past due. As of this afternoon, Freeman has 15 active listings on eBay. What he is doing is collecting money for product that does not exist. Stating “more than 10 available” in the listings is misleading because in reality there are zero available. Sickness or other problems are understandable, but maybe harvesting new sales should be tempered until he can deliver what has already been sold. To each their own, but there are other choices. Granted those options will cost more, but they also tend to be more.
(edited)
I have quite a few stories from 40 years of dealing with pipe makers and flute makers, and that template sums it all up fairly well.
I might add:
If you don’t ask about the progress of your _____ I will assume you’re in no hurry, and I’ll skip over your place in the queue and start working on somebody else’s ______ . If you do ask, refer to #1 above.
If we discuss any sort of special order, I will send you my standard ______ .
If you specify that you would like my standard ______ I will experiment with a design I’ve never tried before and send it to you.
For those curious, here’s an update.
Whistle ordered and paid for: March 3rd
Tracking number created: April 21st
Status: Pre-Shipment. “This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date.”
Current date: May 7th.
I hope he’s doing okay. I’m looking forward to getting the Mellow Dog.
Over the years I’ve found that the gestation period for an Irish instrument is at least 9 months.
That’s for instruments said to be at hand, or that will be made immediately or in the very near future.
For any estimated delivery date of over a few months you can confidently double it, at minimum.
One pipemaker hadn’t done a thing with my order in 6 or 7 years, though I had paid him a 50% downpayment. I know he had skipped over my place in his queue numerous times to make things for other people. Finally he refunded my money. That’s the only time I’ve got a refund from a maker for not making me something, in 40 years of doing this.
I think 2 months is pretty fast. Especially considering the current circumstances.
I will say I recently had a new from-the-maker Irish instrument appear the fastest I’ve ever experienced!
I chatted with Colin Goldie over the phone (he in Germany, I in California) and he played some whistles, we settled on one, he said he could get it posted in a day or two, a week later I had it.
It was just in time…for all the St Patrick’s Day gigs that got cancelled. 