Makers and ordering
BUY-15How many handpan makers are there, and how do I find them?#
beginner
Short answer. Somewhere in the low hundreds worldwide in 2026, spread across forty or more countries. The practical way to find them is through the public maker directories, then to cross check anyone you like against community discussion before you send money.Counting makers is genuinely difficult, because the category has no boundary. Directories such as the one maintained by Master The Handpan list on the order of a hundred makers, and handpan-focused publications in 2026 put the global figure at over two hundred once small solo builders are included. Both numbers are defensible. There are perhaps a few dozen with long, well documented track records, a larger tail of newer small workshops, and a separate group of volume producers making instruments in the hundreds or thousands.
Where to look:
- Maker directories. Master The Handpan’s directory is the best known and lets you filter by price, country and stated lead time. Handpan Guru maintains maker overviews. Directories are a starting point, not an endorsement, and most of them say so.
- Community groups. Facebook groups (the large general handpan groups and the dedicated swap and sale groups), the r/handpan subreddit, and forum communities such as Handpan Village. This is where you find out what owning a maker’s instrument is actually like three years later.
- Festivals and gatherings. The fastest way to compare many makers at once, and to meet builders directly.
- Specialist retailers. Shops that stock several makers can be useful, and some offer trial periods, though you pay a margin for it.
What to be careful of. Search engine results and “best handpan” listicles are dominated by sellers optimising for traffic, and many are affiliate driven. A maker’s own site tells you what they want you to know. Neither is a substitute for finding actual owners.
This repository does not rank makers and will not tell you who is best. What we can say is what a good maker looks like: several years of trading, a visible catalogue of instruments over time, videos that show single notes and not just atmospheric demos, clear statements about steel and treatment, a written policy on tuning and repairs, and traceable owners who will talk about them.
BUY-16How do waiting lists and lotteries work, and how long are lead times in 2026?#
intermediate
Short answer. Much less dramatically than they used to. In 2026 most instruments can be bought from stock or with a wait of a few weeks to a few months. Multi-year lists and lottery draws still exist for a handful of sought after makers, but they are the exception rather than the rule.The history matters, because a lot of what is written online is out of date. In the early years, demand vastly outstripped supply. PANArt famously stopped taking orders and asked people to write letters. Some later makers accumulated waiting lists in the thousands, and Pantheon Steel in the United States ran a well known lottery so that a new applicant had some chance rather than joining a queue years long. Those stories are still repeated as though they describe the present market. They largely do not.
What changed. The number of makers grew enormously through the 2010s and 2020s, volume producers entered at the bottom, and forming techniques improved. Supply caught up with demand for all but the most sought after names.
The mechanisms you will actually encounter in 2026:
- Stock lists. The most common. Makers post finished instruments with photographs, videos, scale and sometimes weight, and they sell first come first served. Popular scales go quickly.
- Drops or releases. A batch announced in advance and released at a set time, often via a mailing list. Effectively a scramble.
- Build slots. You reserve a place in the queue, usually with a deposit, and specify the scale when your slot comes up.
- Lotteries. Now uncommon. A few high demand makers still use a draw to allocate instruments fairly.
- Waiting lists proper. Still used, but usually measured in months.
Typical lead times in 2026: volume producers ship from stock in days to a few weeks. Mid range makers often have stock available immediately or build in one to three months. Established artisan makers commonly quote six to twelve weeks for a build, and a smaller number quote six months to a year or more for a custom order.
Ask for the current lead time in writing rather than trusting a website figure, which is often stale.
BUY-17How do I contact a maker, and what should I ask?#
beginner
Short answer. Email or the contact form on their own website, politely and briefly, with what you want and your rough timeframe. Then ask about steel and treatment, current lead time, exact total cost including shipping, the tuning and returns policy, and whether they can send a video of the specific instrument.Makers are usually one or two people who spend their day hammering, so the ones who reply slowly are not necessarily rude. Keep the first message short.
A workable first email covers: what you are looking for (scale, note count, or simply “a first instrument, open to suggestions”), your country, your budget range, and when you would like it. Ask them to point you at what they have or can build.
Then the questions that matter.
- Steel and treatment. What steel, what thickness, nitrided or stainless or raw? A maker who is vague about this is a warning sign.
- Lead time, in writing. Current, not the figure on the website.
- Total landed cost. Instrument, case, packing, shipping, insurance, and who is liable for import duty and VAT. Cross border orders regularly surprise people with a customs bill.
- A video of that exact instrument. For stock items this is non-negotiable. Ask for slow single notes as well as any musical demo.
- Tuning policy. Do they retune their instruments later? What does it cost, who pays freight, and is there a warranty period for tuning drifting on a new instrument?
- Damage in transit. Is shipping insured, and who claims?
- Returns. Is there a trial period? Under what conditions is a refund given, and who pays return shipping?
- Payment. What methods, and is a protected method such as a card or PayPal goods and services available?
- Serial number and documentation. Useful later for resale and for provenance.
Two etiquette points. Do not ask a maker to compare themselves with a competitor; you will get a diplomatic non-answer and they will not enjoy it. And do not haggle hard on a handmade instrument built by the person you are emailing. Asking whether there is anything in the current stock a little below your budget is fine; grinding on price is not.
How they answer is itself information. Clear, specific and unhurried answers correlate strongly with clear, specific instruments.
BUY-18What is a reasonable deposit, and what should the terms say?#
intermediate
Short answer. For a built to order instrument, a deposit of roughly twenty to fifty per cent with the balance due before shipping is normal. Full payment months in advance is common practice among some makers but it puts all the risk on you, so weigh it carefully and pay by a protected method.Deposits exist for a real reason. A maker building a custom instrument buys steel, books furnace time and commits weeks of labour to a specification that may suit nobody else if you walk away. Asking you to have some skin in the game is fair.
What good terms look like, ideally in an email you keep:
- The amount and the schedule. Deposit now, balance on completion or before shipping. Staged thirds are also common.
- What the deposit buys. A specific build slot, a specific scale and note layout, an agreed shell type.
- A stated lead time, with an acknowledgement of what happens if it slips substantially.
- Refund conditions. Is the deposit refundable if you cancel? If the maker cancels or cannot deliver, is it refunded in full? Is it transferable to a different instrument or to another buyer?
- What happens if you do not like the finished instrument. With a custom build the honest answer is often “very little”, which is exactly why stock purchases are lower risk.
- Who bears transit damage.
Warning signs. A demand for full payment up front by bank transfer or cryptocurrency from someone you cannot verify is the single most common shape of a handpan scam. A refusal to put terms in writing is a problem regardless of how friendly the correspondence has been. So is a deposit far above the norm from a maker with no track record.
Protect the payment. Where possible put at least the deposit on a credit card. In the UK, Section 75 makes the card issuer jointly liable for purchases over 100 pounds, including where only the deposit was paid on the card, which is unusually strong cover for exactly this situation. PayPal goods and services gives a dispute window (180 days from payment for an item that never arrives), which is worth checking against a long lead time: a nine month build can outrun that window, which is a good reason to prefer card payment on long builds.
BUY-19What happens if a maker goes quiet or goes out of business?#
intermediate
Short answer. Act early and in writing, escalate through your payment provider before its deadline passes, and use the community. Handpan making is a small trade with a long memory, and public, factual posts often resolve things that private emails do not.Makers go quiet for many reasons, and most of them are not fraud. Small workshops are one or two people. Illness, injury (repetitive strain is an occupational hazard in this trade), a furnace failure, a house move or simple overcommitment can all stall a build for months. Silence is a customer service failure long before it is evidence of theft.
A sensible escalation:
- Send a short, dated, factual email. State the order, the amount paid, the agreed lead time, and ask for a revised date. Keep it civil. Keep a copy.
- Wait a reasonable interval, then chase once more, and say plainly what you will do next.
- Check your payment protection deadlines now, not later. PayPal goods and services normally requires a dispute within 180 days of payment. Card chargeback schemes typically require a claim within 120 days of the transaction, or of the date delivery was due. UK Section 75 claims have no equivalent short deadline and can be pursued much later, which is why card payment matters most on long builds.
- Ask the community, carefully. Post factually in a handpan group: what you ordered, when, what was agreed, what has happened. Do not accuse. Other customers will often tell you whether it is a general delay or something worse, and makers frequently reappear when a thread starts.
- Formal routes. Consumer protection bodies in the maker’s country, small claims procedures, and, within the EU, the European Consumer Centres network for cross border purchases. These are slow and are worth it mainly for large sums.
If the business has genuinely closed, your instrument may still be serviceable. Independent tuners and other makers will often work on another maker’s instrument, though some decline, particularly for mass produced shells. Ask before assuming.
Prevention is most of the answer. Buy from stock rather than commissioning where you can, pay by a protected method, keep the paper trail, and prefer makers with several years of visible history over new names offering unusually attractive terms.
See also: BUY-26, Care and maintenance
BUY-20Should I buy from a stock list or order a custom instrument?#
intermediate
Short answer. For a first instrument, buy from stock almost every time. You hear exactly what you are getting, you get it quickly, and your money is exposed for days rather than months.Stock purchases. The maker has a finished instrument. You can request a video of it, hear its actual sustain and note balance, know its weight, and often ship within a week. If it turns out not to suit you, a return or resale is far easier because the instrument exists and can be demonstrated. The trade off is that you take what is available: the popular scales sell fastest, so you may need patience or flexibility.
Custom orders. You specify scale, note count, sometimes shell type, finish and bottom notes. This is how you get an unusual scale, an extended range, or something built around a project. The trade offs are real: weeks or months of waiting, money committed to something that does not exist, essentially no ability to audition it before paying, and, with most makers, no meaningful right of return because the instrument was made for you.
There is also a middle option worth knowing about: some makers let you choose from instruments already in progress, or reserve a slot in an upcoming batch of a named scale. That gives some of the choice with less of the risk.
When a custom order genuinely makes sense.
- You already own an instrument and know precisely what you want next.
- You need a specific scale for ensemble work or a recording project.
- You have a physical requirement, such as a lighter or smaller instrument.
- You have heard several instruments by that maker and trust their voice.
When it does not.
- It is your first handpan and you are choosing a scale from a list of names rather than from experience.
- The maker is new, or you cannot find owners of their instruments.
- The wait would push you past your payment protection window with no card cover.
One further point. Beginners routinely over-specify. Extra bottom notes, exotic scales and unusual layouts are seductive on paper and frequently go unused. The instrument that gets played is usually the straightforward one.
BUY-21Does it matter where in the world the maker is?#
intermediate
Short answer. Quality is not regional, but cost, delivery risk and after sales service very much are. Wherever practical, buy from within your own customs area, because shipping a handpan across a border is expensive, slow and occasionally destructive.Excellent instruments are built in Europe, North America, Israel, Australia and across Asia, and the idea that any one region produces inherently better instruments does not survive contact with the market. What differs is everything around the instrument.
Europe. The densest concentration of makers, in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, the Czech Republic and elsewhere, alongside a strong festival and meetup culture. Buying within the EU means no customs formalities, straightforward returns under EU consumer law, and cheap enough freight that sending an instrument back for retuning is realistic. UK buyers should note that since the UK left the EU, orders from EU makers attract import VAT and possibly duty, and returns are more awkward.
United States and Canada. A smaller but well established maker community. Domestic shipping within the US is manageable, and buying domestically avoids import charges and long transit. Importing from Europe to North America typically adds substantial freight plus duty, and adds weeks.
Asia. Home to most of the volume production that transformed the budget end of the market, and also to a growing number of serious small makers, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan and India. Prices are often the lowest available. The considerations are longer transit, import charges on arrival, and, most importantly, that returning an instrument for warranty work or retuning may cost more than the instrument is worth. Judge the individual maker, not the continent.
Practical checks before buying across a border:
- Ask whether the quoted price includes shipping, and whether duty and VAT are prepaid or collected on delivery.
- Ask how the instrument is packed and whether transit is insured.
- Ask who pays return freight if there is a problem.
- Check whether anyone in your region can retune that maker’s instruments.
- Remember that your realistic resale market is mostly local, for the same freight reasons.