OT: Piano Tuner

[Jon maddog Hall]

jsmith at alum.mit.edu said:
> Re the piano:  thanks for the suggestion.  The piano actually seems to be in
> good shape, and has beautiful intricate carving on it, so I think it may be
> worth keeping,

My first player piano was rescued from a furniture warehouse in Massachusetts.
Chocolate brown in color, dirty, not very fancy carving, but a player piano.
It was a Beckwith, made by Sears/Roebuck.  Not considered to be "worth much"
by "serious" piano collectors.  Fortunately I did not know that.

I spent about $2000. fixing it up, having it professionally restored.  A new
player piano will run about $6K, but you can get players that were restored
a few years ago and whose owners now have to move, or the piano was inherited,
for about what it cost me to restore mine.  In reality, the real killer is the
harp frame.  If that is damaged, bent, etc. then the piano is more or less
dead.  Anything else can be fixed with "merely money" (or a lot of tender love).

But the real value of it is in the story.  Imagine what it was like before
radio and TV, before phonographs, etc. where the only music that could be
had was either played, sung or a music box.  Imagine you were in a remote town
in Kansas, or Oklahoma and your family bought one of these so you could then
have music in the house.  "Roll up the rug and dance to the tunes of the player
piano" read one advertisement.   And of course some considered this the first
real advance in useful automation since the Jacquard Loom.

The player piano opened up a whole new range of music that even the untalented
could enjoy.  And Sears, with their big catalog, allowed the masses to order a
player no matter how remotely they lived.  That is why I have it, and that is
why I never regretted spending way "too much" money on it.

By the way, when it was cleaned up and refurbished, the chocolate brown color
became dark red mahogany, a beautiful color.  While I might sell other pieces
in my collection for the right amount of money, I will never sell the
Beckwith.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
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