I am new to this, but am most definitely in the market for a piano. Because I've played for years I thot it would not baffle me. Wow, was I wrong!! I need advice badly. I have saved for years and dreamt about this moment since I was kid. I want a parlor grand and have $20000. I thot I would get a restored Steinway....a dream come true, but now have read so much I am disheartened. Some sites say Boston is good, some say absolutely not. Others praise the Estonia. What to do??? Help!!!!

Welcome to the Piano World forums, Auntie!

And, I think $20K is a nice budget to get a nice piano… not sure about the rebuilt Steinway; they usually go for a little more than that, but you might get lucky. I’m thinking there are lots of nice pianos, especially pre-owned, in your price range.

If you buy pre-owned, have it inspected by a competent piano technician not affiliated with the seller.

Good luck!

Rick

Welcome, Auntie.

Sit down, take a deep breath and consider what you have:

1. You have a budget that will buy you an excellent instrument.
2. You know how to play and have the experience to try different pianos and pick the one that sounds good to your own ear, not someone on this forum.
3. Likewise you can compare the touch of various pianos and choose the one that to you alone feels right.
4. Finally you have patience. You took the time to save the money. Now take the time to shop around.

Use what you find on the Internet as suggestions and opinions, not facts.

Now get back up and be ready to enjoy the journey.

SoundThumb

Enjoy trying out lots of pianos. Take your time.

I know this is a repeat, but it is worth repeating - take your time and play many, many pianos. I guarantee you won't regret it. In fact it probably will be fun!

Don't get hurried or pushed into a decision, there are many different sounds out there. One may be very different from another and you may like both.

Most importantly, ignore how certain letters of the alphabet are arranged in gold on the fallboard. Let your ears and fingers decide.

OK...I did everything you folks told me to do. I have gone to many dealers, played many pianos (some horrible), some humbling. Not sure I deserve a piano as wonderful as some I have seen. [I really just play Christmas carols and waltzes, Andrew Loyd Webber, etc.] Although, I will admit these pianos are inspiring and I may have to purchase some serious music and make a stab at it.
I have a very close friend who is [was]a professor at the Moscow conservatory and played and toured with the Moscow symphony for years. Listening to him play and knowing what he sacrificed actually shamed me into staying off the piano bench.
But, what I am really writing to ask now is....I have come across a Steinway (says Hamburg inside but I think it is just a New York Steinway) model L, built around 1993 that is on consignment in a Florida dealership. They sound like I can have it for 20K, despite they are asking 29K. I looked it up and I think it sold for high twenties back when first purchased. I think it needs some tweaking, but, without a doubt sounds better than anything else I can afford that I have seen for sale. Is 20K too much? I feel like it is, but it is a beautiful instrument.
Anxious to know what you all think, Auntie

Slow down. Sharpen your buyer knowledge. Read the Larry Fine "Piano Buyer Guide". There is a a link to the site on this forum.It's free to read online.

Order "Idiot's Guide to Buying a Piano".This will bring you up to speed on a lot of issues. Be open to different brands. $20,000 will buy you something very very nice! I just finished the journey you are taking. I was a first time piano buyer. Between those books and this forum I have learned a lot. Don't commit to anything used until it is inspected by a tech. I would go fpr new at that price point personally. It's a buyer's market right now.

Since you were just on this journey....what did you decide on? Give me a hint as to a new grand that is "nice" for 20K. I have heard some great things about the Estonia, but cannot find one anywhere near me to play. I must admit I heard someone else playing some kind of Kawaii and the sound was truly wonderful. Then I read on this forum about the piano played, and then people guessed what it was and it turned out to be a Brodmann. Please share more knowledge if you have time. Getting anxious, Auntie

You sound like a very nice person Auntie. I wish I could help you get the best piano for your money.

I personally would never even interact with a dealer if deciding on a new piano. They have motives not necessarily considering your best interest. If they are selling a Steinway that's usually $29K for $20K, there's probably a reason they want to get it off the floor.

I'd decide which piano to buy completely independent of dealers. Read Larry Fine's great unbiased information through Piano Buyer and his books. He's really a person who goes for the truth of things, instead of being swayed by special interests or hearsay.

I can tell you that if it was my personal choice, I'd buy a Japanese made Yamaha or Kawai, or an Eastern European make like Bohemia or Estonia.

I would not buy Boston or Essex or any of these lower tier brands of more well known makers, simply manufactured to meet a price point.

The used piano market is highly variable. I would only buy a restored instrument from a few high end rebuilding shops.

If I was buying it used, I'd take a very long time to inspect it and tune it before I bought it. There's a lot that can be wrong with used instruments, especially conservatory pianos. Don't buy into the 'professionally maintained' line.

I don't like the sound of that. They're giving away more than 30% of the asking at the drop of a hat. It seems like this is a piano the dealer just wants to flip and take his percentage. You'd want an independent inspection anyway, but in this case it's imperative.

The dealer probably has done nothing with the piano except place it on the sales floor. Get his permission to bring in a tech to go through it. That's going to cost you $100 - 150 out of pocket, so make sure you like the piano well enough to buy it.

You mentioned "tweaking". People usually use the term 'tweaking' to describe action problems and not sound. If that's the case, you want the tech to pay special attention to anything you've noticed that you suspect isn't quite right. Have him explain any recommended work carefully in language you can understand and get his price estimate of each separate recommendation.

You won't find answers to your questions in the Fine Book or the Idiot' Guide. You really someone to evaluate that piano. If it's in good shape, it will probably work out well for your level of use.

The Kawai RX-2, RX-3....and Yamaha C2 and C3 are very fine pianos. If it wern't for space issues I could have bought one of them. I started out turning a blind eye to Kawai. I ultimately bought one. Boston is made by Kawai for Steinway if you didn't know that. Buy the "Idiot's Guide to Buying a Piano" despite what someone else countered up here. It may not have the answer to that specific question you posted but it will certainly give you ideas to consider.

I first started out looking for a used piano. I discovered the "Idiots" book in a NYC store and it was fantastic. It discussed looking at used pianos vs new. It had points to check for when looking at a used piano. (Like mouse dropings and other issues!)

$20,000 is a hard price range. It is your hard earned savings, but just is not quite in the range for so many grand pianos. Even for a refurbished one, they say it takes that, plus (the piano, the profit, the overhead).

Pianos, unfortunately, just cost more these days.

So you are in the range of a good - med high end upright piano or a low end new piano (with a discount?) or a lower end small grand. You will want at least a 5'7" grand.

If it were me, I'd be looking for a used piano, fairly new. 10 yrs old is still very acceptable. Old enough to be discounted, they paid less back then, but new enough to be still a newish piano.

And as t-dot mentions, have a tech tied to your hip bone!

BTW, almost all pianos get discounted from the sticker price. So your $20,000 can get you a $25,000 plus piano.

Have you checked the pianos for sale section on PW? or Pianomart? Or talked to a tech who might have or know of one?

We love to hear about buying journeys. Hope you continue to share yours.

I know that if I had 20K I would get the Brodmann 212 that I once tried but couldn't afford. It was simply amazing.

I agree with others that you should take your time and not rush into a purchase. It sounds as if you've been looking for just a couple of weeks, so it's early days yet. I went through this process last year, and I also imagined that I could find a piano quickly. Some people are lucky with it--my brother, who happened to start looking the same time I did, had a piano within a month. But for for me, it took six months.

It was hard to wait, but I'm really glad we didn't give in to our impatience and buy sooner. It would have meant settling for a piano we weren't keen on, and also spending more money. If we had to we would have spent $20,000, but in the end we were able to get a piano we love for a lot less.

Both from shopping and from reading posts here, I found that used US-made Baldwins are often bargains these days, because the current problems with the company have tarnished the name. They're still great pianos (though of course as others have said, you need to have a technician check out any used piano).

If buying new, we probably would have gone with W. Hoffmann, which has a lovely sound and touch--but in the $20,000 range I think you could only get 5'3", and I'm glad to have a larger piano (5'8"). Estonias are also nice, but I think they'd be above your price range new.

I think decades of potential enjoyment are worth a little bit of waiting to find the right piano.

You don't mention where you're located. Folks might be able to point you to more resources if they knew your general area.

Good luck--it really can be fun to try a lot of different pianos (including ones you could never afford)!

You can find out which pianos are in your price range by referencing the Piano Buyer in the left column. Make sure to read the section on piano pricing to understand that the SMP is not normally the selling price and what kind of discount from that figure you can expect. I think there is also a way to search the list of prices by budget and anticipated discount from SMP. The PB also has among the fairest and most knowledgeable reviews in the piano industry.

I am located in southern Florida. I have looked on the Piano World "for sale" site and seen a few great sounding buys, but how do you buy anything sight unseen?
I cannot believe how hard this is!! I have nixed the idea of the Steinway that was made in 1993. I am going to try and plan a day trip to play the Estonia, even tho it is out of my price range.
Whoever said piano shopping was worse than car shopping was NOT kidding.
Btw, I read Larry Fine's book on the Internet and have sent away for the supplement. My husband went to a book store today and tried to find the Idiot's Book for Piano Buying, but came up empty.
Taking up the battle anew tomorrow. Hope I can find a Brodmann close by to play.
Just to clarify, I studied in my youth and certainly played Brahms and Beethoven and Bach (although not my favorite...Bach, that is) and have a niece who is a serious pianist...if she wasn't so busy traipsing around the world studying biology. :-) [I felt like I left the impression that I played with two fingers.]
Thank you for writing to me. I got up this morning and raced to the computer to see if anyone had responded to my post. My search would be very lonely if I had not found this forum. Auntie

With 20K you can likely find a medium to larger sized, lightly used Yamaha or Kawai grand, which a lot of people on this forum are very happy with.... say a C2 or an RX2...However, I would be very tempted to test-drive some hand-made upright pianos....Steinway, Bosedorfer, Bechstein, Seiler, (these are a bit more than 20K, new) nonetheless

Honestly, with $20k in play, I wouldn't buy sight-unseen. Some have, though. A reputable dealer and equally reputable (and independent) technician are needed. I don't have that level of risk-tolerance, though. There are other places to find pianos for sale online (classifieds here, craigslist, ebay, pianomart, etc), but sometimes calling around to stores is a good way to find out what's available as well.

The LF book online is the same as the print version of the Piano Buyer, and is updated every 6 months. The primary point of the smaller-sized annual supplements was to update pricing information and track industry changes from year to year. Those supplements are now out of date. There was more information for laypeople about buying used pianos in the red-cover version of the Piano Book (4th edition), that is still useful, but other information about the state of the industry is now out of date. The other book you mention was written by Marty Flinn, who used to post on this forum prior to his retirement from the piano business. I found a copy through an online used book store.

I imagine you've also been looking at PianoMart and Ebay listings for pianos close to your area? I also prowled Craigslist when I was in the market. There's a lot of junk to sift through, but every once in a while there's a good deal.

I gave up on looking at pianos that "just needed tuning," though. And I saw a lot of disappointing instruments whose owners were sure they were in "excellent condition."

Another great resource is local piano technicians. I eventually found my piano through technician contacts, before it actually came on the market.

I got a phone call tonight from a dealer that recognized my post because of a phone call I made to him several weeks ago. At first I didn't understand how he knew that I had to drive to Naples to play the Estonia. It took me a minute to understand that he had been reading the "piano roll"? Anyway, my point is that he is one of the people writing on this "thread" and most definitely owns a piano dealership. Hence, the person who observed earlier that he/she suspected some of the advice on these posts were really by dealers with an agenda....was right. Auntie

I forgot to mention that you will be stalked by the dealers on here. It happened to me as well. The "Idiot's Guide to Buying a Piano" is hard to come by in a local store. I suggest you look on Amazon and EBAY.

Auntie I'm not sure how the dealer got your phone number -- since I assume your real name, etc. is not listed for public consumption on this forum. After checking this thread, only one of the people who has posted appears to be an industry professional. A hard and fast rule on this forum is that all industry professionals must put their affiliation in their signature line. More than likely, you were phoned by someone who merely read this thread, not posted in it. People usually get banned if they are professionals in hiding. We also take sock puppets very seriously here as well. Based on the responses you got, most of the people giving you advice seem legitimate in their suggestions.

By the way, you didn't mention the model of the Steinway -- that's really important. When you post again asking for advice on a piano, be sure to put the model name, age, condition, etc so people have a better idea.

As stated above, if one of the people posting in this thread is a dealer acting in secrecy (not identifying that they are clearly in the industry), that's a rather serious violation of the forum rules. You should notify one of the moderators.

When I wrote the last post I worried that I should just be quiet about the phone call. [This man knew my name and phone# because I had contacted Estonia weeks ago and asked for the nearest dealer to me. In turn, they contacted him and gave him my information.] I just was amazed that he identified me in the post as the woman he had spoken to weeks ago. I definitely thot I was totally anonymous. I was a little taken aback when he called Sunday nite. I thot he said something like, "as I told you in the forum", but I could be wrong. He was on the phone with me for a long time. He says he is the only dealer of Estonia near me[Ft. Lauderdale] and that he has a Hidden Beauty he can "low ball". ????
The Steinway is an L, built around 1993. I took the serial # and looked it up.
Sorry if I upset anyone. I do not wish to get anyone in trouble, either. Just was kind of surprised about it. Auntie Again, sorry.