The New (Old) Musical Baby
Nov. 9th, 2006 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamhouseLet's look at more uplifting things today, shall we?
At the end of August![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyat and I went to a local auction house with the express intent of furnishing the Big Old Victorian House (BOVH).
We bought a LOT of furniture - furniture that looks tiny when moved into huge rooms with 12 foot ceilings, but that's another story for another day.
One of the things we spotted was a beautiful old full-height upright piano. We examined it closely (I even crawled under the keyboard and pulled the cover to examine the bass bridge) and found it to be - in our clearly amateurish eyes - in beautiful shape. We added it to our bid list.
It never came up for bid.ladyat asked the auctioneer and found out that it had actually been sold at the previous auction a month before but the owner never picked it up. Hmm - it was beyond the "hold" time listed in their rules, what would be the next step? If the buyer doesn't pick it up, they refund the money to the buyer and sell it. Would we be interested in it at the price that it had sold for previously? And how much was that, we asked...
$175
With tax and buyer's premium, a little over $200 total.
Ummm...YES.
To make a long story short, we were finally able to get the piano on 10 October. We spent twice that amount moving it home (including moving our old piano to Youngest Daughter's family so that Elder Grandson can learn to play it, so really only half that was for this piano). We then decided to let it settle in and did some research on it to see what we could find.
It is a Knabe upright, serial number 36964. This means it was built between 1890 and 1895, most likely after 1893. Wm. Knabe & Co. (now owned by Samick Music) was one of the top piano manufacturers of the late 19th century, best known for the grand pianos provided to the Metropolitan Opera after a competition with Steinway.
Given this, we might have gotten a bargain.
We scheduled a time for Manny, our regular piano tuner to come in to work on it. Interestingly enough, he had worked on the piano in 1993 (his card was stuck inside with the tuning date). At its last tuning, he had tuned it to relative pitch.
When he arrived yesterday, I led him to the music room and he pulled apart the piano. He confirmed my analysis that it was in very good shape for its age. However, the strings (except for about 8 that had been replaced over the years) were all somewhat rusted and therefore it was very unlikely the piano could be tuned to A440. His recommendation would be to tune it relative one more time, though he gave me a contact for a piano technician who could change the strings if we decided to do so.
He was rather floored when he heard what we had paid for it - then I left him alone to get on with his work.
I heard the tuning taking place, interspersed with longer and longer sessions of various piano pieces being played.
Manny called me downstairs to let me know he was done. He said, "I've fallen in love with this piano."
During the next half hour or so we talked about the piano and what should be done with it. He gave me the names of some full restoration specialists in case I really wanted to put some investment into the piano, as it was clearly worth it. However, he said that trying to set the piano up to play at modern A440 would be like asking a 110-year-old man to train to run a 4 minute mile when he could already run the most beautiful 8 minute mile anyone ever saw in their lives. He had tuned the piano relative to A435 - very nearly the standard for Steinway and others in 1880 - and felt this was the place at which the piano would sound the best.
He knew the period and the style of piano very well, telling me that this was actually known as a "vertical grand" because the string length was similar to that of a grand piano. He pointed out that the string pins were all wonderfully tight with the exception of the places where the strings had been changed without putting in new (slightly larger) pins - they were still fine but just not as tight, to be expected when you back the pin completely out of the Rock Maple pinboard after 100 years. The bass bridge was in extremely good shape, the soundboard was a solid piece of spruce rather than being laminated like modern sound boards, the sides were all naturally aged solid walnut which is basically unavailable today.
In other words, in his opinion, notwithstanding the fact that no one wants full height upright pianos nowadays because they are too big, to buy a piano of this quality today would cost upwards of $10,000.
Sure we couldn't sell this one for that much without a few thousand dollars worth of work and a market for antique full height uprights that really doesn't exist, but still - it makes that $200 investment with $200 for the mover seem very, very worthwhile.
Sometimes it is just nice to have a professional agree and expand on your evaluation.
Before Manny left he made a suggestion. Even though I write on the guitar, just once, whatever time of day is my best creative time (when he was writing music with his wife his time was at sunrise, hers was at sunset) grab a snifter of brandy, sit down at this piano, and write something.
I think I'll do that.
At the end of August
ladyat and I went to a local auction house with the express intent of furnishing the Big Old Victorian House (BOVH).We bought a LOT of furniture - furniture that looks tiny when moved into huge rooms with 12 foot ceilings, but that's another story for another day.
One of the things we spotted was a beautiful old full-height upright piano. We examined it closely (I even crawled under the keyboard and pulled the cover to examine the bass bridge) and found it to be - in our clearly amateurish eyes - in beautiful shape. We added it to our bid list.
It never came up for bid.
ladyat asked the auctioneer and found out that it had actually been sold at the previous auction a month before but the owner never picked it up. Hmm - it was beyond the "hold" time listed in their rules, what would be the next step? If the buyer doesn't pick it up, they refund the money to the buyer and sell it. Would we be interested in it at the price that it had sold for previously? And how much was that, we asked...$175
With tax and buyer's premium, a little over $200 total.
Ummm...YES.
To make a long story short, we were finally able to get the piano on 10 October. We spent twice that amount moving it home (including moving our old piano to Youngest Daughter's family so that Elder Grandson can learn to play it, so really only half that was for this piano). We then decided to let it settle in and did some research on it to see what we could find.
It is a Knabe upright, serial number 36964. This means it was built between 1890 and 1895, most likely after 1893. Wm. Knabe & Co. (now owned by Samick Music) was one of the top piano manufacturers of the late 19th century, best known for the grand pianos provided to the Metropolitan Opera after a competition with Steinway.
Given this, we might have gotten a bargain.
We scheduled a time for Manny, our regular piano tuner to come in to work on it. Interestingly enough, he had worked on the piano in 1993 (his card was stuck inside with the tuning date). At its last tuning, he had tuned it to relative pitch.
When he arrived yesterday, I led him to the music room and he pulled apart the piano. He confirmed my analysis that it was in very good shape for its age. However, the strings (except for about 8 that had been replaced over the years) were all somewhat rusted and therefore it was very unlikely the piano could be tuned to A440. His recommendation would be to tune it relative one more time, though he gave me a contact for a piano technician who could change the strings if we decided to do so.
He was rather floored when he heard what we had paid for it - then I left him alone to get on with his work.
I heard the tuning taking place, interspersed with longer and longer sessions of various piano pieces being played.
Manny called me downstairs to let me know he was done. He said, "I've fallen in love with this piano."
During the next half hour or so we talked about the piano and what should be done with it. He gave me the names of some full restoration specialists in case I really wanted to put some investment into the piano, as it was clearly worth it. However, he said that trying to set the piano up to play at modern A440 would be like asking a 110-year-old man to train to run a 4 minute mile when he could already run the most beautiful 8 minute mile anyone ever saw in their lives. He had tuned the piano relative to A435 - very nearly the standard for Steinway and others in 1880 - and felt this was the place at which the piano would sound the best.
He knew the period and the style of piano very well, telling me that this was actually known as a "vertical grand" because the string length was similar to that of a grand piano. He pointed out that the string pins were all wonderfully tight with the exception of the places where the strings had been changed without putting in new (slightly larger) pins - they were still fine but just not as tight, to be expected when you back the pin completely out of the Rock Maple pinboard after 100 years. The bass bridge was in extremely good shape, the soundboard was a solid piece of spruce rather than being laminated like modern sound boards, the sides were all naturally aged solid walnut which is basically unavailable today.
In other words, in his opinion, notwithstanding the fact that no one wants full height upright pianos nowadays because they are too big, to buy a piano of this quality today would cost upwards of $10,000.
Sure we couldn't sell this one for that much without a few thousand dollars worth of work and a market for antique full height uprights that really doesn't exist, but still - it makes that $200 investment with $200 for the mover seem very, very worthwhile.
Sometimes it is just nice to have a professional agree and expand on your evaluation.
Before Manny left he made a suggestion. Even though I write on the guitar, just once, whatever time of day is my best creative time (when he was writing music with his wife his time was at sunrise, hers was at sunset) grab a snifter of brandy, sit down at this piano, and write something.
I think I'll do that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 05:55 pm (UTC)And Manny sounds wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 06:49 pm (UTC)It could also possibly be compared to that famous scene in When Harry Met Sally - i.e. I fake it pretty well...
In simple terms - no, that's well over my head *grin*
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 09:02 pm (UTC)You play piano like you're fixing a carburetor? Or do you just keep saying "I love you, baby, I love you, I love you"?
That's one beautiful bargain. Congrats.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 09:08 pm (UTC)The former. Though with this instrument the latter is entirely possible.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 09:01 pm (UTC)They'd never let me though. I don't know if they value their son or that piano more..... And I'm not gonna test that out either. :D
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 09:07 pm (UTC)I gave my piano away when I could not find room for it in my student apartment - way back then.
I gave it to a family with three musical kids.
I remember I cried for hours when it was gone.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-09 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 04:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 07:47 pm (UTC)Enjoy muchly!
BJ
note to self ... must get piano tuned ... must practice some and build up muscle strength ... annoying finger stiffness, not withstanding! :)