I'm keeping an eye out for a used Yamaha C3, C5 or C6, and came across this:

http://calgary.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-...QAdIdZ451293248

It's a long drive away for me to go look at it, so wondering if it would be worth my time. Does the price seem right?

By serial number this piano appears to be the grey-market variety.

http://www.yamaha.com/ussub/piano/serialnumberlookup.html

Buying such piano for Calgary's extreme super-dry climate is a sure recipe for possible desaster.

Buy something new and definitely "made for Calgary"...

Norbert

Interesting -- thanks for that insight. I'm in Saskatchewan, so the weather is equally dry here.

Also, I'm not seeing a huge price difference when going from the C3 to C5. So I'm wondering, do I just hold out for the biggest piano possible? Are the extra inches worth the extra 3k?

Price is way high for the USA marker. I paid a similar price in US dollars for a newer non-gray c6 in the US.

The difference between the c3 and c6 is huge. Don't know about the 5 but from what I saw the c5 didn't command much of a premium over the c3.

The Canadian market is much different though.

I'd love a C6 .. I'm trying to be patient and wait for a used one to come by..

That price seems VERY high for grey market. I bought a G3 grey market for $8500 or around there. This was several years ago, but I think now they go for $11k USD. If you do decide to go with grey market, you must install a Dammp-Chaser and most likely have a room humidifier going in the winter. Personally, I'd recommend not going that route and waiting for a good deal on a used one made for the North American market.

It is definitely worth going for a C6 if you can vs. the C3. That's almost a foot of difference and that makes a huge difference in the bass notes. Of course, this is assuming you're comparing the same quality of care between two used pianos.

For pianos "built by size" it does.

For pianos whose quality doesn't depend on size, much less so.

Norbert

I had time to kill today and by coincidence was in the neighborhoods of two of our piano stores. I stopped in and said hi at both of them. The first one was the guy I bought mine from and his store was hopping busy. He had three Shigerus in that I played. As much as I loved them last time I played them I think I like my c6 every bit as much now. I also had played a c3 earlier in the week that was noticeably weaker and brighter than my c6, which made me happy I bit the bullet.

I also stopped in our yamaha dealer and played a new c6x and a few c6s. The x was noticeably the nicest, and nicer than mine. Very pretty sound, and very easy to control.

But the point of my story is he had a new c3 (not a c3x) that was the best of the lot. That piano was just sublimely wonderful to play. Warm, beautiful singing tone and a bottom end that was plenty satisfactory. So it's a little tough to say all c3s are the same. That one at least was a wonderful piano.