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Hello Everyone,

I am by no means a rich man, but if I were to have 1 prized possession in life, it would be a Hamburg Steinway. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any Hamburg Steinway dealers in Vancouver. Does anyone know how I would go about having one imported and the costs involved?

Lawrence

Any Steinway dealer in the world can order a Steinway from either factory for you, but the Steinway dealers in Europe don't tend to have many American Steinways on their floor, and the Steinway dealers in the US and Canada don't tend to have many or any Hamburg Steinways on their floor. The best bet is to ask a dealer.

Just adding to joe80's post - Dealers in North America deal with NY made Steinway pianos. It has been the case for some time that those dealers can "special order" a Hamburg Steinway for a customer. I understand that you can expect a sizable upcharge.

However, it might be possible to visit the factory in Hamburg and make a choice right there.

Good luck,

Just adding to Joe and Rich's post (nice to be in a thread were we are additive!) .... Lawrence, as noted, call a local Steinway dealer and find out how much. Then call Steinway London and ask how much, and call Steinway Hamburg and ask how much. With London and Hamburg ask about possibilities of choosing directly on the floor. My understanding is London keeps a special "stash" elsewhere for serious buyers. What that means in practice I don't know.

But, I;d guess that London and Hamburg will likely refer you, if not call directly for you, to the NA dealer with whom they've done this sort of thing before. Some dealer somewhere in NA will have more expertise and experience than others in importing an instrument from Europe. So it might be that you pick an instrument in Europe but a NA dealer handles the details of getting that instrument to you.

Tom Lee Music brings them in by special order and at times have a few models in stock.
Call the store nearest you, we have 9 or 10 in B.C.
I you want to know who I recommend to talk to there, you can private message me.

I have been wondering about this for a while now, didn't have the mind to ask on the forums, but this thread prompted me to ask. In the big countries of North America, like Mexico and Canada (besides the US), are New York Steinways more often sold in Steinway dealers? Or are the Hamburg Steinways?

New York is what you will find in Canada.

There appears to be a dealer selling some in Calgary. I keep coming upon this particular craigslist ad for the last few months.

http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/rch/msd/5435578230.html


Also there might be a used D at Pacey's, although I don't know if it was still there. I saw it maybe 3 months ago. It was a really really nice piano, I would've bought it if I had a room for it. The owners imported the piano from London.

Those would be rebuilt in eastern Europe, not new Steinways.

Great, thanks for the info Rod. I didn't know that at all.

I did ask once at Steinway Hall in London if they would supply a piano directly from New York, and they said of course they would, but the sensible thing for the buyer to do would be to fly to New York, select the piano that they wanted, and the sale would be facilitated through Steinway London, which, they said at the time, would make the piano cost about the same as the Hamburg Steinway when you consider the cost of booking flights and hotel.

You could also just buy one of their New York models from stock - they usually have a New York D in the C and A room, and they sometimes have one in stock new. The price of the New York models for sale in London was significantly cheaper than the Hamburg models. There was a New York D that had been put out for sale after being in C and A for three or four years (very few people were selecting it, although it was a good piano) and it was priced at £75,000 in 2010. The Hamburg D at that point was £105,000, and the cost of an ex-hire Hamburg that age was about £95,000.

I'm sure then that the pricing would probably work in reverse buying a Hamburg piano in North America.

In my limited experience with NYC pianos, some of them have a tendency to be a bit more rough around the edges than the Hamburg ones, but when they're prepped properly (and London make a very good job of it), they are beautiful pianos, as good as Hamburg ones, although different.