Baby Grand Piano Soap Opera: happy endings
So.... part of the recent family visit to sort through the remaining stuff from my Dad's old house involved a baby grand piano. The house is a 3-story Victorian with plenty of space, so the piano has sat in one of the front rooms (the "Music Room") since we moved in there in 1962. It was bought with the house, partly because moving a baby grand piano is.... not trivial. (We also bought a large Victorian dining table with I forget how many matching chairs.) My Dad, whose mother taught Latin and piano, used to play it, especially his favorite pieces: "Stardust," the "Moonlight Sonata," and others.
Years ago we had been told it couldn't be tuned properly because it had a cracked sound board, and so it hasn't been played at all for some years. Dad (obviously) didn't want it in the apartment, so it was left with the other "extra" furniture for us to deal with.
We were fortunate enough to find a piano company that takes old pianos, restores and re-sells them. It's called Piano Mill. I'd previously seen a few others (googled on "piano rescue" to see what would come up) but none of them were in our area. So we asked them to come and take a look.
We really would like to find the piano an appreciative home. If we can make some money for Dad by selling it, well and good, but our main goal is to send a minimum of stuff to the landfill, and the piano certainly does not deserve that fate. We were quoted something in the neighborhood of $600 for someone to take it away and junk it.
Piano Mill looked it over (the equivalent of kicking the tires and test driving, I assume) and agreed to take it, evaluate it and tell us what they thought. So at least it's out of the house and in good hands.
They have now examined it more thoroughly and told us that it's in better shape than we had thought -- the soundboard, although cracked, still has "crown and plenty of singing tone to it," and it's definitely repairable. Other than that, the pin block is gone and it needs a fairly complete rebuilding and restringing: "pretty much a standard full rebuild," was their opinion.
It's a Knabe, an old and very good brand. They have also been able to trace the serial number and give us a date: 1893. We will never know for sure, but this piano might well have been sitting in the house all its life: the house was built in 1880 (another date that surprised us by being older than we thought). As far as we can tell, the furniture parts of it are in good shape and so is the keyboard.
Unfortunately this piano was apparently built just before Knabe began using the "modern capstan" action: it has what's called a "rocker" action, which makes the piano harder to play than a modern system piano. The "back action" which operates the dampers is also in an old style. What this means in practice is that it would cost about $9K to restore it with the existing actions and $11K to restore it with modern actions. These pianos generally sell for something on the order of $15K-$20K restored, and Piano Mill takes a 25% commission.
Alternatively, they will store it for $100 a month plus a $375 moving fee until we make up our minds.
And the third option, which may be the one we take: it's a good enough piano that they are willing to accept it for their warehouse stock, to be restored and resold someday. In return for us giving it to them, they will charge us nothing for moving it. We particularly appreciate this offer because they told us they have three Knabes already in backstock and don't want to collect too many.
So any way it falls out, we are happy, and the piano will no doubt go to a good home. Whether we're willing to put the capital into it for the sake of making some money on the deal is yet to be decided: Dad, of course, gets a deciding vote.
Years ago we had been told it couldn't be tuned properly because it had a cracked sound board, and so it hasn't been played at all for some years. Dad (obviously) didn't want it in the apartment, so it was left with the other "extra" furniture for us to deal with.
We were fortunate enough to find a piano company that takes old pianos, restores and re-sells them. It's called Piano Mill. I'd previously seen a few others (googled on "piano rescue" to see what would come up) but none of them were in our area. So we asked them to come and take a look.
We really would like to find the piano an appreciative home. If we can make some money for Dad by selling it, well and good, but our main goal is to send a minimum of stuff to the landfill, and the piano certainly does not deserve that fate. We were quoted something in the neighborhood of $600 for someone to take it away and junk it.
Piano Mill looked it over (the equivalent of kicking the tires and test driving, I assume) and agreed to take it, evaluate it and tell us what they thought. So at least it's out of the house and in good hands.
They have now examined it more thoroughly and told us that it's in better shape than we had thought -- the soundboard, although cracked, still has "crown and plenty of singing tone to it," and it's definitely repairable. Other than that, the pin block is gone and it needs a fairly complete rebuilding and restringing: "pretty much a standard full rebuild," was their opinion.
It's a Knabe, an old and very good brand. They have also been able to trace the serial number and give us a date: 1893. We will never know for sure, but this piano might well have been sitting in the house all its life: the house was built in 1880 (another date that surprised us by being older than we thought). As far as we can tell, the furniture parts of it are in good shape and so is the keyboard.
Unfortunately this piano was apparently built just before Knabe began using the "modern capstan" action: it has what's called a "rocker" action, which makes the piano harder to play than a modern system piano. The "back action" which operates the dampers is also in an old style. What this means in practice is that it would cost about $9K to restore it with the existing actions and $11K to restore it with modern actions. These pianos generally sell for something on the order of $15K-$20K restored, and Piano Mill takes a 25% commission.
Alternatively, they will store it for $100 a month plus a $375 moving fee until we make up our minds.
And the third option, which may be the one we take: it's a good enough piano that they are willing to accept it for their warehouse stock, to be restored and resold someday. In return for us giving it to them, they will charge us nothing for moving it. We particularly appreciate this offer because they told us they have three Knabes already in backstock and don't want to collect too many.
So any way it falls out, we are happy, and the piano will no doubt go to a good home. Whether we're willing to put the capital into it for the sake of making some money on the deal is yet to be decided: Dad, of course, gets a deciding vote.