What can you tell me about a Ludwig & Co. piano serial # 99576?

It's probably a big old upright made around the turn of the century, a 100 years ago. It could be in any state of disrepair and probably isn't worth much of anything without a complete rebuild

I sold a beautiful Ludwig last year. They were very high quality instruments. The one I sold did not require any rebuilding to be a fun instrument to play. The bass strings sounded good, the pinning was snug yet free, the hammers were worn but reshapeable.



It would be a brand I would consider if it is a well-preserved specimen.

I went to look at it. It seemed well kept. Was regularly tuned. I would like to verify the date of its "birth." Unfortunately, I do not have a book to do so.

Come guys give it your best shot, don't look.

I'm going to guess 1911.

I don't have my book with me.

I've seen some great Ludwig uprights, some amazingly well-kept. Worth buying if the price is right and it's in good shape.

I'd say 1910 or so.

Late 1919

Ok, since we're playing the guessing game here......

99576 = ludwig piano

98,000 = january 1, 1919, 12:00am
100,000 = january 1, 1920, 12:00am
2000 pianos that year, 365 days per year (non leap year)

2000/365 = 5.47945205479452 pianos per day.
99576 is closer to december than january.

initial guess october 1, 1919.
31 days = dec, 30 days = feb, 31 days = oct: 92 days.
92*?/day = 504.1
100000-x = 99495.89
ok now getting close... now add above # per day until I get to the #...
2=99501
3=99506... this is too slow try 10 days at a time...
13=99561.. now close. +1*2..
15=99572.6027...
16=99578.08219.... ... ok so it was October 15, 1919. Now to figure out the time of day.
(my calc has a degrees/minutes/seconds calculator on it (I had to do other math to get far enough to use it though))...

final result of my guess as to when this piano was manufactured:

October 15, 1919, between 2:52:47.999984464 pm and 7:15:35.999984464 pm

I happened to be calculating based on the 11th edition of the Pierce Piano Atlas (yes, I admit I cheated). I have the 12th sitting around somewhere.. maybe it includes more data like hours of operation, piano manufacturing schedules, etc... so I could actually be ACCURATE on a guess like that? (I haven't seen that data yet, though.)

Rod, you were close. Would you like to try to pin it a little more precisely?

P.S. it'd be interesting if instead of just showing when a post was last edited, it showed how many times it was edited... for example this one might say edited 35 times in 8 minutes around 9:30pm or so.

I always liked the sound of the bass on Ludwigs. I re-whatevered a Ludwig as a project and sold it a while back. Something I learned was that the action parts are not quite standard. The standard parts can be made to work, but are not quite the same. The standard jacks are too long among other differences. I don’t know the date of the one I worked on, and newer (or should I say less old) ones may have standard action parts. The other thing I learned is that you can’t voice out a lack of downbearing at the treble break. They sure do have a nice cabinet style, though!