This is Planet Money from NPR.

Hey, this is Amanda Aronshik.

Today's show is a holiday favorite that asks the age-old question, can the world really

handle two handbell companies?

This episode aired for the first time in 2014.

Enjoy.

A few years ago, Jonathan Goldstein had managed to save up enough money to do what he'd always

dreamed of.

Buy a small company.

He wanted it to be a company that actually made some thing, some physical object, and

he wanted there to be some secret in how it was made, some magic in the process.

He found something that seemed perfect.

A small factory located on a grassy hill in rural Pennsylvania.

It made these.

Handbells.

Yep, the kind you hear around the holiday season.

Jonathan went to visit the factory to talk to the people there.

The bells were beautiful, musical perfection.

But he says, it turns out there was a handbell competitor just down the road.

And I said, so tell me about this other company, and they kind of looked around at each other

and sort of said, well, you know, historically we didn't get along too well.

That it turns out was an understatement.

...