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The local music store I work with is now selling Wm. Knabe pianos. As I understand it, they are made by the Samick corporation. I've tuned a few of them now and they seem to be decent instruments. I guess they're considered a "stencil" piano. I have been wondering if piano manufacturers such as Samick actually stick to the original specifications of Knabe or are they all the same piano with just a Knabe name plate slapped on?

As far as I know they just use the knabe name.

The most recent Knabe/Samick I have seen was about 8YO. It had many of the scale details I am used to seeing in the old Baltimore Knabe's.

Hi Ryan,
I don't think that Samick using the Knabe name is a true definition of the "stencil piano idea. For example in this case, if your music store ordered blank pianos from Samick then put their own name on them and told patrons they were the manufacturer, then that would be a stencil piano. I can't remember the exact event that caused an uproar with stencils, but when the stencil piano law was passed, manufacturers names had to be on the piano. Often you will see old pianos with two names on them as a result.

Samick using the Knabe name sure is a testament to the enduring reputation of Knabes. My understanding (third hand info, so maybe someone has a better understanding of this))that Samick can only import a certain amount of pianos into the U.S.before a Duty Tax is charged. So to import more and avoid the Duty Tax they use others names. If that's true, would certainly have a more devilish intent than a stencil piano.

I'm not sure I entirely agree. The moment another manufacturer changes any of the design parameters from the original it is the very definition of a stencil. If one were to copy and produce the original design using the original processes I think we are then due for another classification of piano manufacturing. Perhaps a licensed design exclusively made by X...

SMHaley,
Could you explain your stencil definition in more detail? What do you mean changing design parameters?

Looked this up in Dolge.
Paraphrasing:
Stenciling began in 1870 innocently by Joseph Hale to offer his customers pianos at different prices. But it grew into a fraudulent practice by dealers and manufacturers working together, to use names that were very close to famous makers names, to ride on their fame. William Bush (of Bush and Lane) headed the charge to have a law passed against this practice, because the stencil pianos were very cheap and flooding the market. And the consumer was tricked into thinking it was a high quality product. In 1912 Kansas Congressman Phil P. Campbell introduced the Bill on stencil pianos. After the law was passed manufacturers had to have their name on the piano clearly visible.

I don't know the current status of the law. Probably still on the books. What law ever gets off the books?
Is Samicks name on the Knabe? Does it have to be if they bought the rights to the name?

Knabe is something of an exception in the field of stencil pianos. Samick actually tried to introduce some of the features of the earlier (authentic) Knabe pianos. They are not exact replicas of the original but they come much closer than most.

As such I don't think they should be lumped together with true stencil pianos that, to me, are simply a company's generic piano line with a variety of different names on the keycover.

ddf

I suppose it depends whether or not you want to know who actually made it. We all know there are different grades of quality when it comes to stencil brands. Ritmuller, for example, was once a venerable builder. Now, little more than a mediocre Asian production instrument.

Its also no secret Samick, as well as others, make a multitude of products that are little more than small variations on the same theme. I heard that more than 500 models are made by Samick alone under various names. My point is that if the product doesn't resemble its predecessors than it obviously shouldn't bear the name. For some that may actually be an improvement, but it won't be the case of all.

Nowhere on the Boston piano does the actual manufacturers name appear, yet to the experienced eye, it has the actual manufacturers' name "written all over it".
Is this classed as a stencil?

The original stencils had the fake name stencilled on the fall board. Nowhere inside the piano did a manufacturers name appear. There was at least one whole factoriy making nothing but stencil pianos for other people, be it "manufacturer" or dealer to put their own name on it.
A sophistication of this was to also bolt a plate with the fake name onto the iron frame.

Hello, I have a list of more than 150 stencil names and who produced the pianos for most of them (2-3 major builders of the time, proposing the dealer's to put "their" name on the pianos, hence the numerous names.

This was probably not as much fraudulent than marketing tricks, while I was not there to hear the dealers discourse.
(it was probably not very different from today)

So far, for the situation in France from the beginning of large factories till more or less second world War.

A shop could also buy a piano, in pieces, and assemble it. The old Renner catalog allowed that, while I am not aware of dealers doing so.