]
Not by themselves, no. But they certainly are a strong contributing factor. As the middle class shrinks it leaves more folks with limited resources. Once—usually out of ignorance, sometimes on the advice of a “tooner” somewhere—they have spent a few hundred or a thousand or two on a clunker that can't reasonably be made into a decent musical instrument they simply give it up. They lack both the will and the funds to start over.

The result is doubly sad: most often the kids miss the opportunity to discover music and a dealer somewhere has missed the opportunity to sell a good piano—whether that be used or new on is irrelevant to this discussion. The only ones benefiting from these transactions are the ones selling the piano (they got rid of a clunker without having to pay to have it hauled away) and the movers (who, I suppose, might have been paid anyway to haul the clunker away).

ddf[/quote]

Del, this is my point exactly. You said it perfectly!

I must also say that I am ALL FOR restoring older grands or verticals, assuming that the market is there for it, and the customer doesnt mind investing in a quality job. We are currently doing restorations on a 1925 Grotrian, an early 1900 Bluthner, 2 Steinway O's, an old no-name upright (for a private customer) and a gorgeous Weber square grand which we brought back to new condition (which still isn't good) I'm advocating the destruction of the 80% which aren't worth restoration. Ever notice that you almost NEVER see a Ford Pinto, or a Chevy Chevette around any more? They have been melted down, and are now probably parts on another car... NOT being restored so kids can learn to drive them.

If they'd been pianos they would still be around. And folks would be asking us to patch them up just one more time...it's just for the kids, after all....

ddf

So, Dan and Del, to turn the analogy around, would you guys teach your children to drive in a fully restored vintage car? Have them crash through the gears, ride the clutch, reverse into the fence post - all in a perfectly restored vintage, just so that they can "appreciate driving"?

I didn't think so...

So, let's be realistic. There is a market for mediocre pianos, to introduce children to piano music. Just as there is a market for mediocre cars, for learner drivers.

I'm not advocating that parents should buy completely dead pianos. But one has to be realistic.

There is one crucial difference: any car, even a mediocre one, should be roadworthy. In contrast, there is nothing life-threatening about an old shoddy piano.

Except a piano where some of the parts could fail and cause something heavy to fall on someone. I have seen that.

I don't think I understand your point. A fully restored vintage piano will play pretty much like a similar new piano. There will be no standard transmission/automatic transmission differences; no clutches to ride; and all cars, vintage or new, have reverse gears and be equally capable of being backed into fence posts.



That is my point. One has to be realistic.

That old clunker with missing action parts, 10 to 15 mm letoff, wobbly flanges, hammers worn half-way down to the wood, keys with no bushings left and most of the tops missing along with a few broken or missing strings and tuning pins spinning freely in their holes is not realistic. It cannot be made to play decently for less than the cost of a working new (or just newer) piano. The plea is that the technician please “just make it work one more time.” No one wants to throw these things away. Or even recycle them.

Wear and tear aside, not every old upright (or grand, for that) was initially well designed or well built. There was a lot of junk being built 70 and 100 years ago just as there has been a lot of junk built over the past to 40 to 50 years. I'm suggesting that it is time to get realistic; to stop feeling sorry for people who allowed ignorance to rule or (more likely) who were just trying to cheap the system. I'm suggesting it's time to stop attempting to unsuccessfully patch up the real junk just one more time whether it be of very old or more recent construction—it doesn't work. It doesn't really help the client (they not going to end up with anything that can be honestly called a good piano) nor does it help the technician (in the end his/her reputation suffers since people soon forget how rotten the piano was to start with but long remember who they paid to do the work).

Not every old upright piano falls into this category. Many still do have some, or lots, of reasonable life left in them. But after 70 to 100 years of hard use, sloppy repairs and neglect the percentage is diminishing. Those that do remain as potentially viable musical instruments should certainly be given our best work to keep them musically fit for as long as it is economically feasible to do so. If they are good enough—that is, reasonably well designed and constructed—they may warrant the cost of full rebuilding to give them a whole new life.

ddf

My sentiments exactly!

Del,

Granted, my question was a bit pointed, and taking things to the opposite extreme. Let me clarify the point I was trying to make:

If a child is to learn to play piano, then in my opinion a fully-restored piano (which was, after all, the subject of this thread) makes just as little sense as an irreparable old clunker. The former makes no sense because it is, to my mind, way too expensive - given that the outcome of the child's tuition is still unknown; the latter makes no sense either, because it does not give the child a fair chance.

Those few and select old pianos that deserve to be restored, are, to my mind, not suitable for beginners (but blessed are the parents who can afford one, simply because junior would like to play piano). I would have a child learn on a piano that is in a reasonable state of repair. The same goes for teaching a child to drive - neither a clapped-out wreck nor a fully restored Porsche 912 makes any sense for a learner driver. (The fact that the restored Porsche handles like any new car, or even better, is irrelevant here.)

My 2 cents, and hoping that my point is clearer now. If not, let me simply say "I agree" and leave it at that.

Hi Mark:

So, what about a restored upright done 15 years
ago that sells for less than a 44" new Chinese piano?

Steve

Steve,

Judging by prices here in SA, you're talking "cheaper than USD 3,500".

To me, that sounds like a very good price for a relatively recently restored upright... I'm no tech, but would classify 15 years as "relatively recent".

An aside:
In fact, to me it would make little sense to do a restoration and sell 15 years later. I have certainly not seen anything like this while searching for a piano here. In this price range I only found used instruments with refurbished cabinets and, at best, some minimal work to get them playable again. I certainly found no restored instruments - in the sense of replacing tubby bass strings, re-felting worn action parts, etc. - so your question is a bit hypothetical for the circumstances I've seen here.

Anyway, if the upright is in good shape (chances are near 100% it sounds much better than the Chinese 44" anyway), I would immediately go for it, rather than the new Chinese.

I hope yours was not a trick question... If it was, and I fell for it, let me know. :-)

Del, Dan and Mark (and everyone else following this thread)

I had decided to stay out of this for once and for all, and let others with greater minds than my own have the last word but then Mark had to bring up the Porsche 912 thing, and this got me thinking that I really would like to chip in a few last thoughts. Then I'm out for good.

Del and Dan - let me say right off that I hold the two of you in the highest regard. Del, you're recognized as being one of the leading gurus of the field of piano technology. When I was cutting my teeth in the business, I thought of Jack, Susan and Arthur as being the Holy Trinity of piano work. Well, you're right up there with them, in this day and age. When it comes to experience with pianos, I'm just a puddle-jumper flying my little commuter plane from town to town. You're piloting the Space Shuttle.

Dan, being a survivor in the retail end of the industry sets you apart right off the bat as being the cream of the crop. No one makes it this far, in this economy, without good reason. I respect your take on the topic.

That being said, there are a few points that you have both made repeatedly which I would like to take issue with.

First of all, the statement has been made on numerous occasions that every time period has produced both good and bad pianos, and that the majority of pianos (80% is the figure that has been tossed about) produced in the 1900 - 1930 period of time may be lumped in the "bad piano" category, and therefore not worthy of consideration for saving. "Haul them to the dump!" seems to be the watchword of the day.

While it may be true there are "good" pianos and "bad" pianos when compared to the "average" piano for various periods of time, I believe that the standards for the average piano fluctuates considerably. The average piano built in the 1900 - 1930 period of time, I contend, would easily best the average piano built in, say, the late 1960 - 1980 time period.

I'm sure that some of the non-technicians reading this are scratching their heads, wondering "how so?" The more recent pianos don't look so bad, after all.

To answer that question, look inside the piano at things that are not apparent to the casual observer. The amount of attention paid by the manufacturers to the outside of the piano has remained high over the decades, for a simple reason - that's what the customer sees. But look inside, and you get a different picture.

One benchmark of quality for me is something no one but a technician ever sees - the keyframe. Let's examine that.

In the early 1900's, keyframes were sturdy and quite simply well built. There was a hardwood front rail, balance rail and back rail, all tied together with sturdy cross-members so that the frame with the keys (once unscrewed) could be lifted out of the piano as a single unit. The back rail felt used was full width and properly glued to the rail. The front rail and balance rail punchings were full size and properly leveled with paper punchings. The keyframe and keys were mounted on a well-built keybed. This was the standard construction, and even the more cheaply built pianos of the era adhered to this level of workmanship.

Now, fast forward to the years centering on the 1970's. In many pianos, the keyframe was reduced to a narrow strip of hardwood serving for the front rail, ditto for the balance rail, which were tied together with dowels (sometimes) or narrow slats of wood. The backrail? Gone in many cases. The backrail felt (or a narrow excuse of a backrail felt in many cases) was many times simply glued (or even worse, stapled) to the keybed. The keybed, instead of being a sturdy foundation for the keyframe and action, was in some cases just a piece of glorified plywood. The felt punchings were in many cases smaller in size (making it possible to get more mileage out of a sheet of felt). In some pianos, leveling papers no finer than .010 inch (blue card) were used to level the keys. (At this standard of "workmanship", if one eyeballs the keys as to level, one will see a definite up and down look to the keytops. It does save time in construction, however.)

Granted there were also pianos that were well made during this period of time - but the quality of the average piano, in my mind at least, was much lower than in the beginning decades of the 1900's. To me, the years around the 1970's seem to be the nadir of the industry's output.

My second contention is that the 80% figure being bandied about (even if one accepts the idea that those pianos aren't worth the trouble of saving, which I don't), is most likely inaccurate, in that the weeding out process has been ongoing for years, and those pianos which remain today are more than likely the better quality of instruments that were built.

A comparison to automobiles has been drawn, with reference to Vegas and Pintos, I believe. Granted, in terms of automobiles, those models weren't the best. When they were in production, quite a few of them were seen on the roads. How many do you see today? The last Vega I saw was in 2005. I remember the year, because my wife and I were coming out of a restaurant that she had taken me to in order to celebrate my 55th birthday. There, outside the entrance in the parking lot, was a Vega.

My point of this is that the winnowing out process for pianos, like cars, is on-going. The grain has been separated in large part from the chaff already. The "Vegas" and "Pintos" have already to a large extent been hauled away to the dump. Those pianos remaining, which to the casual observer (and to technicians who are too lazy to take the time to really look for signs of original quality) might appear to be "clunkers," are in fact many times like diamonds in the rough, waiting to be brought back to life. Granted, it can take a lot of work, but the results are often well worth the effort.

Restoration work, by the way, need not be done as an "all or nothing" venture. I can't speak for other shops, but we always itemized and prioritize work which could be done. Many times, a piano may be worked on a little at a time, as a customer's budget allows.

Restoration work varies considerably depending on who's done the work, by the way. Some people who have a low opinion of what the potential is for a restored piano, I have found, have never seen what a really well-restored instrument looks, plays or sounds like. While I have nothing against people doing work on their own in principle, pianos that have been refinished by amateurs generally look amateurish, and this is, unfortunately, the picture some people have in their mind when it comes to restoration. (There are some jobs DIY'ers seem to have more luck with than others. Refinishing usually isn't one of them.) I have seen exceptions to this rule, but those have been few and far between. But, that's another thread entirely, so I'll leave that topic alone.

My last remark is directed to you, Dan. I'm sure that this is a tough time to be in retail, trying to sell new pianos. The economy has affected my business as well. However, I think any downturn in sales over the last few years is more a result in a shift in people's attitudes towards what they want to spend their entertainment dollar on than the fact that Craiglist pianos are luring them away. Kids are getting lazy, when it comes to free time, in my opinion. They want to be entertained. When a 10 year old has a choice of playing a video game, or sitting down to a piano to learn to entertain himself, I'm afraid many children take the easy road. I'm seeing it with my grandkids. The piano is work, to them. Video games are fun.

When it comes to competing against Craiglist, my suggestion would be this. Find a portion of a wall in your store where you could line up 2 or 3 old uprights that show a lot of potential, along with an estimate of the cost to properly restore each one. Explain that they are only for sale if proper restoration is undertaken. When people see that a good quality restoration will cost as much or more than some of the nice new pianos that are in stock, I believe many people might be more like to chose new. You might even agree that yes, the old pianos would certainly be beautiful once restored, and they are for sale under condition of being restored, but you need to understand it will probably be a year or two before the piano will be delivered to your home. Restoration, after all, takes time.

The new pianos on the floor, on the other hand, may be delivered within the week. Plus they have a guarantee that no restoration shop could reasonably match. Pianos I restore, for example, are not warranted in any way as to the integrity of the cast iron plate after they leave my shop. I can't possibly guarantee that a century old casting will hold up for another 5 or 10 years. Granted, I've never had a problem with any piano I've restored, but I certainly wouldn't want to put anything in writing.

Just giving people the choice, and letting them see that having a piano restored is both costly and time-consuming, might help improve sales. For one thing, it would give customers a clearer picture of the hidden costs of a "free" piano, and might help them see that getting a piano from Craiglist might not be such a bargain after all. These older pianos that you are showing are, after all, the 'best of the best.' Most free for the hauling pianos would need more work than these.

Well, I'll quit - this time for good. I'm sure, Del, that you'll present a perfectly crafted rebuttal that will make everything I've said appear trivial. So be it. Opinions, as they say, vary.

A last O.T. comment. I mentioned that Mark got me worked up with his comment about 912's. Here's a picture of the 912 I let go in order to add one more room to my shop. (My 912) For me, it will always be the "one that got away." As a DIY'er, by the way, I did all the body work and repainted the car in its original tangerine (now called 'blood orange'). It was one of the least practical cars ever, by man, was it ever fun to drive!

Have a great day, all. I'm off to fire up the snowblower and attack the 3 foot drifts surrounding my house. "California dreaming, on such a winter's day!" indeed. Chuck

Hi Mark.

Yes, they come about due to numerous reasons. Same with grands.
They do sell for that price point or often much less and are good buys for some people.

Take care,

Steve

I think you and Del are converging on agreement here.

I like to use car analogies a lot, too, but there are limits. The primary hazard to avoid, which we see over and over again, is a child who spends a month at piano lessons and then quits in frustration. The parent is happy because they didn't waste money on a new piano. But they may not realize that the child was frustrated because the touch of the piano was uneven, and sometimes notes just wouldn't play.

A better analogy might be a child learning to walk. You don't want any obstacles (literally) in their path as they start to come across the floor, because their motor control and balance are so limited. As they progress, they can tackle challenges like going from floor to an area rug.

But there's certainly no harm in a beginner having a perfectly smooth, level floor with good traction. I think we all agree that the only hazard for a beginner to have an excellent piano to play is to the parents' budget (unlike the Porsche 912 analogy).

Any instrument will either lead a musician on, or hold them back. You've got to favor the former over the latter. I often recommend that a parent with a young child think about renting a piano in good shape, rather than buying a clunker. I'll even recommend a cheap digital for a very young child -- at least the touch is even. Take your favorite clunker and put four or five nickels on a key. See how many it takes to push the key down. Now move that same stack to the key next to it, and so on. You'll quickly see the uneven touch that the pianist has to deal with. A nickel is about five grams, by the way; you might need ten for a grand (tape them together, please!). Yes, the sustain pedal changes the downforce, but your beginners won't even be able to reach it; leave it alone.

--Cy--

Well, I think I understand your point, but....
There is a difference, I think, between unsuitable and unnecessary.

The irreparable old clunker is unsuitable for just about any musical purpose. But, while I grant that the beautifully remanufactured or restored old upright may be unnecessary for the beginning child I don't see any performance quirks or idiosyncrasies that might stand in the way of success either. As far as I'm concerned the better the sound the better the musical experience; and the better the musical experience the better are the chances for success. I think the car analogy breaks down here. If the 912's I drove back in the 60s were typical I'd say the quirkiness of the Porsche 912 may well certain difficulties to the beginning driver. Great cars for the experienced driver, but....

For me this comes down simply to the ability (and willingness) of the parents to spend the money. I've known parents who were able and willing to purchase a new Steinway B for their kids to start lessons on. That purchase made less a dent in their bank account than my taking my wife out to dinner makes in mine. So, why not? Or should we be telling those parents, “Oh, no! You shouldn't be buying this Steinway; it's much too fine an instrument for your children to start on; it's too expensive for this use; it is just not a suitable piano for beginners?”

I agree that it is not necessary to provide the child with either a Steinway B or a fully remanufactured and/or restored upright—or even a new Brand X upright, for that—as a minimally acceptable beginning instrument but I don't see it as being unsuitable either. To be sure, kids can effectively learn on far lesser instruments. But if the parents can easily afford the expenditure and decide they really want the lovely old remanufactured Bush & Lane—or that Steinway B—in their home as Suzette begins her musical career I am certainly not going to dissuade them.

ddf

Thanks, Del, for pointing out "unsuitable" as opposed to "unnecessary". I agree fully: those (few) parents who can and want to afford a first-class piano for a beginning child, should not be dissuaded - to the contrary: they should buy the best they can afford.

I do think, however, that for most parents, who simply are less affluent, it's a bit of a moot point - certainly for me, "unnecessary expenditure" is not much different from "unsuitable expenditure".

@ Chuck: sorry for the 912, it just sprang to mind after doing some reading on Porsche models yesterday. And yours certainly seems to have been a fine example. On the other hand, selling it has obviously served a good purpose.

Chuck,

I wholeheartedly agree with you that culture shifts have been one of the primary contributors to a lack of music education. I've said in previous threads that if my son spent as much time learning to play guitar, rather than Guitar Hero, he'd blow Eddie Van Halen away. (By the way, I'm not averse to Craigslist or Ebay competition... that is actually the primary source of my retail business!! I LOVE IT!!) I still maintain my position on MOST (not all) uprights, but you bring up a very good point about the sub-par quality of the 60's & 70's... lots and lots of landfill fodder in that time frame.... mostly cheaply made spinets. Very well thought out post you made! It made me think!

There is certainly truth to what Chuck writes. And, on balance, I agree with his assertion that there were some pretty miserable excuses for pianos cranked out during the years he highlights. We just tossed a Kimball console built during that time. The cabinet still looked acceptable but the cost of even the basic repairs needed far exceeded any resale or musical value the thing might have. More to the point, even when new its musical value was not all that great. (I should note that in years past I have also rebuilt several very nice old Kimball uprights.)

But...not everything we technicians look to as indicators of “quality” have any real affect on either performance or longevity. Let’s take a closer look at those keyframes—unless the piano actually has a shifting keyframe and action there is no real need for that elaborate and expensive independent keyframe. The independent keyframe was a necessity back when keys were cut and drilled largely by hand—the whole assembly was manufactured and shipped as a unit. Most keys and keysets today are built using NC equipment to a level of precision undreamed of in heyday of the old upright. (I know, this does not make the "better," just more precise.) In terms of both structural stability and overall performance the modern method of attaching the rails directly to the keybed works just fine. Can this method of construction be poorly done? Of course. But I’ve also seen poorly made independent keyframes.

I also work with laminated keybeds in factories and, frankly, have no problem with them even if one choses to call the material “glorified plywood.” I actually prefer them. Even in grand piano construction, given the choice, I will specify a keybed of laminated hardwood construction. They are—potentially, at least—less costly, stronger and more stable than their butcherblock counterparts. But, just as butcherblock keybeds can be well made or poorly made, so to can laminated keybeds. The problem is not with the design of the keybed, it is with the execution. The laminated key bed can be good or bad—it’s up to the manufacturer.

The old upright, in my view, has no inherent advantage here. But all is not lost; let’s move up to the keys themselves. This is an area where many—not all, but many—old uprights demonstrate a distinct advantage. Due to the sheer size of the pianos—not just height, but overall width and depth as well—the key flare angles in many old upright are smaller than in their modern counterparts. The Bush & Lane I’ve mentioned earlier has a maximum key flare angle of less than 5°. Most are nearly straight or well below 3° or 4°. The Kimball we just tossed had very short keys with some flared up around 20°. After 94 years the B&L keybushings were barely worn. We replaced them because the moths had gotten to them not because they were worn. Not all old upright keysets were so well designed, but generally they are pretty good.

The Kiimball keys, less than half that age are good only for kindling. The high key flare angles put so much side pressure on the keybushing felts they had worn through and the pins had worn substantial pits in the (softwood) keybuttons.

Also of significance is the facts that the keys in the B&L are about 28 mm tall, those in the Kimball were around 20 mm. How anyone ever expected those keys to last even through the length of the warrantee is beyond me. Well, obviously, they didn’t—it was a calculated risk; nobody really expected those pianos to be played much. They were primarily decoration. This one was actually played and it simply fell apart under what should be considered normal use.



I’m not sure all the grain and chaff has yet been separated. I think it will be going on indefinitely. I keep finding bad old uprights coming on the market from owners who have had them for years and are now moving and don’t want to take it with them. Or who have just inherited them and don’t want them. Or who—and this is the one that really irritates me—have had them patched and band-aided by the cheapest “technician” they could find and now Suzette has gotten reasonably accomplished anyway and so they decide it’s time to really fix the old thing up. But now it’s pretty much no longer economically feasible. It’s always more costly to try to fix previous bad work and many is the otherwise good old upright that has been condemned for this reason.

In fairness, I keep finding some good ones as well. And those do not always with recognizable brand names.

And the winnowing process has just begun with the pianos coming from the 1960s on! That Kimball was not the first of its ilk I’ve tossed nor will it be the last. And with these I expect the percentages (if we want to go there) of pianos unsuitable for extensive repairs or restoration is going to be some higher.

For all of these pianos I tend to look for a combination of good basic design and good basic construction. In fact, I’ll give extra points to a nicely designed piano that might not be all that well built. Even though a piano may appear to be well made if I don’t think the design is particularly good I’ll not bother with it. If the owners want to go ahead I’ll happily recommend other rebuilders who I know will do a good job. But I don’t have the time left to spend on pianos I don’t like.

ddf

I would like to return to another aspect of the original post.



I can perhaps shed a tiny bit of light on this, at least for one top-tier make. For the last few years I have been noting the serial numbers of pre-1940 Blüthner pianos that I have come across - these have been mainly on the internet, a few were in auctions, and one or two are in museums. This table shows the totals of serial numbers that have come to my notice thus far.



We can perhaps draw some tentative conclusions from these figures, though it is difficult to be conclusive. Where the numbers appear lower, it is quite possible that many more still exist, but (for whatever reason) less have come to my attention.

The first 10,000 are real antiques; the grands have a particularly "antique" look, and many are straight-strung. It does seem that these perhaps have a lower survival rate.

However after about 10,000 (i.e. from the mid 1870s) there is no indication here that the older instruments are thinner on the ground than the newer ones. Quite the reverse, in fact! However, I would guess that the larger numbers of pre-1910 pianos in my list perhaps indicate that more of these are on the market, whereas later ones may be in more stable ownership.

Anyway, there is no sign here of a clear attrition rate among early Blüthners.

David, thank you for your information.
You are still only reporting that you have come across only around 1% of the pianos that were made. How comprehensive is your personal observation of Bluthners? I presume it is limited to the UK? How many other markets are there? Globally, how many are there out there? Thats the question!

David - Something to keep in mind when talking numbers is that serial numbers do not necessarily correspond to actual output of a factory. Look through a Pierce atlas and you'll notice that few manufacturers start their production with serial #1. Usually production begins on a round number in the thousands. After that, manufacturers commonly start each new year at a new 1000 or 5000. So, if you have a piano with a serial number of 10026, and it was the first year of production for the company in question, it was most likely the 26th piano produced by the factory. It would be very unlikely for a piano factory just beginning production to be turning out 10,000+ pianos the first time at bat.

Trying to calculate the number of pianos produced by going on serial numbers is bound to be inaccurate. Chuck

I have those same sort of thoughts about my piano, and wonder if the lady who originally owned my piano back in the late 1880’s wondered the same. I bought the piano for a song off of a guy who was moving and didn’t want to take it with him again. It had originally belonged to his great grandmother in Louisville. It stayed in the original home until it was finally sold and he took it to have his kids use to learn on. They never learned to play and it sat unused for about 7 years. When I bought it, my thoughts were to just play it as is. But, eventually, I kinda fell in love with it and wanted to give it a make-over. Now, I wonder what will happen to it when I am gone. Nobody else in my family plays. If anything, I’d leave it to a gifted person who would love it and play it for years after I am gone.

Here’s a couple before and after shots.

I love this old Weber upright piano:

It is true that I have recorded about 1% of pre-1940 Blüthners. However, at over 1000 pianos, this is statistically quite a large sample! I would think that any conclusions from my data are likely to be statistically significant. Provided, of course, that the data is a representative sample.

My data largely consists of pianos advertised on the internet. While I am sure that it is not 100% representative, I would think that it is not so far from being so. The data is certainly international! The number of Blüthners that I have recorded by country is as follows.



So, I stand by the observations in my previous post. That the number of Blüthners from the 1870s and 1880s is significantly greater than for later periods must mean something. Just what, I am not entirely sure! But it does not seem to support the idea that Blüthners from this period are rapidly disappearing.

There are some interesting observations from my table of Blüthners by country. That by far the most are from Germany is not surprising. But that there are so few from Austria does surprise me. I suppose that the Austrians bought Viennese pianos.

There are far more in Poland than in other East European countries (apart from Russia). This might in part be accounted for by my happening to see more Polish adverts. But it might also stem from part of Poland having been Germany before WWII. Pianos are not easy to move, and would have tended to remain where they were through changes of frontiers. There is at present on ebay a Blüthner with a bullet hole from WWII:



Lots of Blüthners in the US, Russia and Australia!

Wow what an incredible find! a wounded Bluthner! Gotta wonder who shot the bullet.

Where was the piano found after the war?

Chuck, thanks for this information. But it does seem that Bluthner did number their pianos in a straight-through sequence, as I have not observed any gaps in the x900s, which I would otherwise have expected. (For example, I have seen number 59988.)

I do not know if they started at no. 1, but they certainly started very low. I am aware of no. 86 in Norway.

In Germany somewhere, I presume. Where exactly, it doesn't say, I am afraid!

Also have to wonder if someone was killed...