Our church has an old Kohler & Chase 4'11" baby grand with a serial number of 229808.

If anyone here has a copy of the Pierce Piano Atlas - could you please tell me what year the piano was built?

Thanks in advance !!

That serial number is not listed in the piano atlas. The last number listed for Kohler & Chase was 163000 in 1957.

I go by the Kohler & Chase building in San Francisco from time to time.

That's interesting !! Particularly since K&C went out of business in 1958. I copied the serial number off of the piano myself yesterday. On both the fallboard and the soundboard, the decal says Kohler & Chase New York. I understand that the pianos were made both on the west and east costs for a time. Perhaps they used different serial numbers.

How is the old K&C building in SF being used these days??

Thanks !!

NOTE: Kohler & Chase New York pianos were made for Kohler & Chase by the E. Gabler & Brothers Company - which apparently went out of business in 1931 (absorbed by Aeolian).

Perhaps the serial number for our K&C baby grand is more in line with those given by E. Gabler & Brothers to their own pianos.

Could someone please check the Pierce Atlas one more time for me just to see if that might be the case?

Again, the serial number on our K&C New York piano is 229808.

Thanks !!!!

So I dug a little more and found a listing of serial numbers for E. Gabler & Brothers which ends with #181000 in 1931 when Gabler was absorbed by Aeolian. Apparently Aeolian continued to make Gabler pianos for a few more years - which makes me wonder if that included the Gabler built Kohler and Chase instruments as well. A long shot perhaps.....but our little grand with the 229808 serial number sure looks like it was built prior to 1950. Oh well ........