Hello all!

I'm doing out of state research on a piano in Orange, Texas for a television program. I wanted to see if anybody knew anything about the piano pictured below. All I know is that the piano was left by previous owners of the home in Orange Texas. I'm currently trying to get more pictures from the owner and hopefully a serial number soon but for now the attached picture is all I have. I know it's a long shot but I wanted to see if anyone knows more about this model. I'm most interested in finding out about the history of such a piano. Thanks for any help you can provide.
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Sorry, but I don't think your picture file upload worked... all I saw was a small red X in a box.

Welcome to the Piano World Forums, by-the-way!

Rick

oh shoot, I'm going to insert it into the post...

also, thanks for the welcome!

It is European and probably worthless. Such pianos were very cheaply made and did not last well.

Thanks for the insight. It makes sense it wouldn't be worth much seeing as the owners left it behind in their house. Do you happen to know which countries in Europe produced these sort of cheap pianos? Any interesting history surrounding the selling or importing of cheap pianos?

Most of them came from England, but also from France and Germany. They showed up in the US by the containerload about 1980, when the original countries were dumping them on antique dealers. It is a shame that all that nice wood and veneer work went into such lousy instruments.

This is an English overdamper (aka birdcacge) piano, straight (flat) strung, built between 1885 and 1905. The case has a walnut (possibly mahogany?) burl veneer. The owners abandoned it because moving it would have exceeded its value.

This information is 92% correct, 19 times out of 20.

Do a search in the Archives using key words from above for more information.

Speaking of European pianos ... approximately when would some of you all say they took a turn for the better on quality? From what I understand, many of them from the late 1800s are quite poor and not worth restoring (of course there are good ones like Bechstein, Bosendorfer, etc), but in the last 10 years or so many of them are considered to be top-tier pianos. When (approximately - 1940s? 1950s?) did Europe in general turn toward cranking out better pianos? Or did something else happen, like the bottom-tier makers going belly-up and thereby shifting the balance toward the better pianos?

Blonde rosewood burl veneer, most likely over oak rails. Most of them were.

I am not sure where this comes from, except perhaps a lack of knowledge and experience. Europe has always produced top-tier pianos, starting from Christofori around 1700 and onwards. Not all European pianos were stellar, of course. The whole grouping of British overdamper pianos can be dismissed as un-musical, but back then the British didn't consider themselves part of Europe anyway....

Speaking from my experience with both German and North American pianos, I would say that in general and with the exception of very few brands, North American pianos from just about all ages take a second seat to European (or at least German) pianos in terms of musicality, though not always in durability.

This info is great, thanks so much!

and thanks to everyone for chiming in so quickly! This is a great community!

I once had an ex-car mechanic boss who like to say "Give an Englishman 1,000 lbs of metal, and he'll think of 2,000 stupid things to do with it!".

sry - silly joke & deleted