I'm considering purchasing a preowned Yamaha GH1 baby grand piano, polished black satin, tuned & in great condition. Do you think $4900 is a good deal on this? This will be my first nice piano and I can only afford up to $5K. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Although the price is reasonable, many GH1s were plagued with problems. Some were OK but none were good. Yamaha replaced the model.

I would keep shopping.

Yeah, I'd much rather have a G1, GC1, or C1 instead of GH1 if at all possible.

Everything has to do with price. That's a good deal on a GH1. Of course, if you could get a higher quality piano for the same price it would be a better deal (for you), but you might lose this one while you're looking. I'll bet if you bought the piano and decided later you didn't like it, you could sell it for what you paid. The last used GH1 one we sold was $7,990.00 and we could of sold it ten times. Good luck.

The GH-1 is difficult to tune due to the scaling. I usually make some interesting compromises on each one I tune. The ETD tuners have a hard time with it.

Ditto on GH1. Even a good one...well, isnt'.

Agreed. I find the GH1, GP1 to be very poor to tune, with the GA1 slightly better in some, but not all cases.

The GB1 is far better all round and the GC1 a completete gem.

I find my CP-80 an easier piano to tune than the GH1, and even unamplified it sounds a whole lot better

OK, let's say a GH-1 is "not good."
But for $5k (USD), what are the alternatives for a GRAND piano?

Axtremus makes a good point. In the market for a grand piano for under 5K, and a smaller market to boot, could be slim pickings.

Being 1 State North of MO in our major metro area, I've seen only 3 grands in that price range in the stores. A GH 1-beat up and old, old, old that they wanted 6K for but don't know if they sold it. A sub 5' Pearl River, maybe 5 years old, not very nice to play but nice to look at, maybe with regulating it would be nice, I don't know. The 3rd was a Hyundai that for my skill level sounded fine and felt nice (a brand name that most do not think makes a nice piano. May not hold up over time but I thought it was potentially a good value).

Outside of those 3, in our market the next level up represents pianos in the $14000 range, Yamaha, Kawai, Boston, Kohler & Campbell.

To my knowledge GH1s were all high gloss polyester. A satin polish one may indicate that it's been repaired or refinished.

Anybody else heard of a satin black GH1?

Colin-

The Yamaha that I referenced in my post was a 1977 grand, I can't recall the exact model number but I thought it was a GH1 (could it have been a G1 or GC1?). It had what I'd describe as a satin finish as well, a soft-black "pleasantly scratched" up look to it. I've since seen 2 Kawais of the same vintage with the same "look."

Curious if gracegodby61's question is about a 70s vintage Yamaha.

Unlikely.

The GH1 was produced for a very short time, all date from around 1989-1995 or thereabouts. I think all were polyester. The GH1 was beset with problems and was replaced by by the GP1 which was not much better. The GA1 was introduced to replace that, and some of these are known to be unsuccessful. The GA1 is now superceded by the decent little Indonesian built GB1.

Your 1977 piano was most likely a G1, a far better instrument than a GH1 in spite of being an earlier design.

The GC1 is a new model built only in the last couple of years and is excellent, being a stripped-down Conservatory series C1, so it couldn't have been one of those.

"Satin" is shiny and a lot of novices think that it refers to high-polished finishes.

I'm sure they meant Polished Ebony.

The 1977 Yamaha GH1 did in fact come in Satin Ebony. I own a 1977 GH1 and have the original brochure- it also came in Polished Ebony and American Walnut.

The Satin Ebony is kind of a matte finish- shiny, but not glossy like Polished is.

I bought mine used for $3500- guess it was a bargain. If I wanted to resell it, what would be a fair asking price?