3 and a half years after originally starting the thread (and also finding that several sellers of musical instruments failed to reply to my queries by E-mail or letter), I finally got what I wanted from the Really Useful Music Company in Co. Durham, England (which I actually came across via E-bay). After getting a 24 hole "Swan" Tremolo Harmonica in the Key of "G" (probably the most useful Key to play in, at least I find that is what the largest fraction of tunes at local informal music sessions are played in) from them for less than £10 Sterling, I recently got a box of 12 Swan Tremolo Harmonicas in each of the 12 keys from C to B (including sharps) for about £60 Sterling (£65.98 including postage) which works out at about £5 Sterling each.

The harps are Chinese made and come in a sturdy black box a bit like a thin briefcase with a handle, and also have a cloth to wipe them with. The tone is quite good although (and this seems to happen a lot with cheaper harmonicas, even Hohner) several of them have minor faults on 1 or 2 of the lower notes on the lowest of the 3 octaves, ie the reeds do not sound as loud as the others, make a slight buzzing sound or may perhaps be slightly out of tune (although with tremolo harmonicas, the 2 reeds (above and below) are tuned deliberately a little out from each other to produce the tremolo effect. The tuning is I believe called Eastern or Asian tuning (which is what I was used to so didn't have to learn a new system); this is different from the Richter tuning on blues harps, etc.

For the level I play at this doesn't matter too much especially at the price. If I was a professional of course I would be spending a lot more. As I already had a C, D, A & G harmonica this means that I now have spare ones for each of these, useful as eventually a harmonica may give up the ghost (this happened a few weeks ago with my Chinese Hero Tremolo Harmonica in the Key of C, due not to failure of reeds but to one of the partitions surrounding the reeds becoming loose; it would be a pity to throw it out as I actually prefer the flatter shape at the mouth end but I can't see how I could fix it - any ideas?).

The details are as below. Service is fairly quick and I found them helpful on the phone.

      

Really Useful Music Co. (R.U.M.C) | PO Box 30 | Imex Center | Station Lane | Birtley | Chester - le - Street | Co. Durham | DH3 1QT | United Kingdom   
   
T. (+ 44) 0 191 410 8080 | F.   
   
E-mail: info@reallyusefulmusicco.co.uk   

Website: http://www.reallyusefulmusicco.co.uk/

Living in Northern Ireland I have no connection with the company except as a satisfied customer. They also do stringed and wind instruments and various accessories, etc.

Sorry I can't do blue clickies (but you can easily paste the above into your web browser or E-mail program).

I thought that the above might be of interest to budding harmonica players on a limited budget.