Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Is this a good price for a used Steinway Model M?

My wife wants a Steinway Baby Grand Model M for her birthday this year. Our local Steinway store is selling a 2012 Model M in Satin Ebony for $55,000. Is this a good price or do you think we could find a better deal elsewhere like a dealer or Craigslist? We're in the Southern California area so I'd hope we'd have the best options out there. My wife is worried buying anywhere else besides directly from Steinway we wouldn't get a piano with all original parts.

You could be a better piano for cheaper from any number of rebuilders. I wouldn't worry about whether a Steinway is all original or not, I'd rather have a well set-up Steinway from a quality rebuilder. They approach their work as a labor of love.

If you like this specific piano, I would suggest negotiating much harder on the price.

In addition to the good information here, most technicians are able to purchase and use Steinway action parts easily, if they want to use them. (it's a hotly debated topic, though).

Talk to some rebuilders before you drop that kind of money. Otherwise, you may be paying for some mighty expensive kool-aid. The original parts are not universally regarded as the best parts, in the comparison of consistency, durability, and accuracy. The whole PR campaign inre "only factory parts" originates at the factory as an attempt to counter their major competition. Their major competition is their old pianos that rebuilders can restore to a condition superior to new ones. The brand would like you to think that their product is artwork, and needs to keep provenance to remain a work of art but the fact of the matter is that the piano is a production product and when made on an assembly line by dozens of people, will rarely reach the level of refinement that a careful, artistic, rebuilder can produce.
Regards

Your post, despite its brevity, raises many issues. There's price, source (of both the piano and parts), used vs rebuilt, all-Steinway vs not-completely-Steinway, and "my-heart-is-set-on-this-one" desire (a.k.a., wifely happiness). Your challenge is deciding on what is most important, then the path you take will be much clearer.

In terms of getting original parts, I'd venture that any recent Steinway will be "All Steinway." Unless the piano has been treated terribly, there shouldn't any reason anyone would do a rebuild using non-factory parts for any instrument that is, say, 20 years old or less. In other words, with a recent Steinway, it containing non-Steinway parts is something you should check but is of low probability.

As for price, one can always find cheaper, but you might have to settle for an equivalent item, not the specific 2012 Model M your wife may her heart set on. If she only wants that one, any good salesman can figure that out, and even hard negotiating will yield only modest savings. (I used to be in sales, and when someone falls in love with a specific item, we'd call that the "blooming cherry tree" effect).

In terms of buying a rebuilt or restored Steinway, I sense there are many qualified parties who do excellent work. This might be a good option if you find someone who is good and that party has either the model you want or can get one to restore for you. In the latter case, you might have to wait months on delivery. If it were me, the biggest issue would be how to figure out whether I was dealing with a true artisan, or someone less scrupulous, as I have no way to evaluate the work someone has done on the inside of a piano.

I'd like to add one other issue for you to consider, based on my experience buying and restoring a Steinway piano. A high end instrument does require adjustment and tweaking. I've had the technician from Steinway over to my house several times to make adjustments to keep the sound optimal, as the piano settles into a significantly different climate (hot and muggy) than what it was in during the previous year in restoration. Most of this service was on their nickel, as part of their post-sales support and 5-year warranty.

So my advice is this, remember "happy wife, happy life."

John

As my British friends would say:

"I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole"

Ed Foote speaks nothing but truth on that one.

The piano may well be a good instrument. Whether or not it's a good price I have no idea, since we usually only have Hamburg Steinways in the UK and so the USA prices always seem very cheap in comparison to the London price for any Steinway (starting at about £60,000 for the Model S...... I mean, really....)...

What I would add is that I have never played a Model M that I have been particularly happy with. There are other pianos in that size category that are better and may even be cheaper. Also, for the same price as the Steinway M there are other larger and better designed pianos which may suit you better.

If you have to have a Steinway - which is understandable as they can be excellent pianos - I would take Ed's advice and explore the option of rebuilt Steinways. If it has to be a recently made all original Steinway, then I would suggest moving up a model and looking for a Model O or even an A if you can find one at a good price.

1. I have been to the Steinway factory several times. It is anything but an assembly line.

2. Steinway factory craftsmen are highly trained in their part of the building process and become experts in that area. They do not claim to have the expertise to build the entire piano. Many of them are 3rd or 4th generation workers. I personally think it is a little arrogant to claim that one or two men could surpass the expertise of the entire Steinway & Sons factory. But that's just me.

3. If rebuilt Steinway pianos were truly "superior" to new Steinway pianos they would have the ability to be sold for more money than new ones. They aren't and they can't.

4. Ed may be a fantastic rebuilder. (Don't know - haven't had the pleasure of meeting him) He tends to give pretty sound advice many time on these forums.

5. If you want a piano with a rebuilder's re-engineering and redesign and you think it is better - go for it. It you want it the way the Steinway & Sons company intended it to be - stick with Steinway or at least a rebuilder that rebuilds to their standard and designs.

6. "Best parts" is subjective. Others may feel Steinway parts are not the best. The Steinway factory would disagree as well as other rebuilders. Everyone has an opinion on this. Steinway uses their own parts as part of their entire recipe. If you like that philosophy, you should stick with Steinway. If not, than you could consider what a rebuilder has to offer.

7. I am a Steinway & Sons dealer - I am biased. But not any more so than the rebuilder that does not have the capability to sell you a new Steinway if that is what you wanted.

I've played countless new Steinways, both at showrooms and from a variety of rebuilders. While I can't attest to the quality of the individual builds (i'm not a technician), I can attest to the quality of the set-up, the responsiveness of the instrument, the overall playing experience, etc. The showroom pianos fall somewhere in the middle. Better then poorer rebuilds/setups but not on par with what a true craftsman can do. Even the best showroom pianos I've played fall short. I would image that if I were a famous concert artist, I might be granted access to better performing instruments, or maybe not. I'm just not sure.

Also, I don't exactly know what being a 3rd or 4th generation worker has to do with quality.





There's any number of reasons why a brand new Steinway sells for more. Maybe the rebuilds are underpriced. Maybe the factory ones are overpriced.

Also, the many different rebuilders don't have the luxury of setting a single price across a large area.

Greetings,
In response to the dealer's perspective above:

If that factory, which I have also visited more than once, is not an assembly line, I don't know what is. The carcasses move from one station to another, having mass produced components(action stacks, keyframes, back actions) installed. There is a lot of cumulative error that takes place.

>>I personally think it is a little arrogant to claim that one or two men could surpass the expertise of the entire Steinway & Sons factory. <<

Arrogance is the trademark of the Steinway dealers I have seen, and I have never seen as many false beats in a good rebuild as I see in brand new Steinways. Over centering hammers, wildly erratic pinning, totally oddball geometry etc. are not usually seen in the artist level rebuilds I have examined, but are the norm for new pianos. Perhaps if one were to compare a showroom floor instrument against one from Dale Irwin, John Johannson, Cunningham Piano, Chris Robinson, or more than a few others, the differences would become more evident.

>>It you want it the way the Steinway & Sons company intended it to be - stick with Steinway or at least a rebuilder that rebuilds to their standard and designs.

This may be at the crux of the problem. The factory production is only an approximation of the designers intention. If the pianos were actually built like they were designed, we wouldn't be having this conversation, but the designers didn't intend for ratios to vary from 5:5 to 6.5:1, nor the down bearing to be hit or miss, or the bridge pins to be loose,tuning pins that are at all heights and torques, coils loose, or any of the other aspects that make a great instrument. One of the major shortcomings in the mating of action stacks to keyboards, with the capstan landing in whatever compromise it takes to make the piano play. This results from a fixed hammer distance being joined with totally irregular plates,which causes a departure from the designers intention.

>>6. "Best parts" is subjective.

Depends on what criteria you are using, but there is nothing subjective about knuckles being in various configurations on the same piano, nor pinning that is all over the map, or flanges that are crooked and irregular, or jacks with a variety of edge profile, or hammershanks that have completely erratic flex, or any other metric you can measure the quality of parts with. I would like to hear a technical description of what is superior about the factory parts, because after 40 years of watching them wear, in comparison to Tokiwa, Abel, or WNG, I cannot find anything superior about the original parts.
Keeping them original would require that Teflon be reinstalled in that vintage, and even the factory won't do that.

The greatest obstacles seem to be production tolerances and assembly of irregular components. The pianos are touted as having unique "personalities", when, in reality, I believe they are simply the result of loose tolerances that have been accommodated in whatever way it takes to get the instrument out the door.

Regards,

It's silly to take offense because someone refers to the Steinway factory as an assembly line, which is "a series of workers and machines in a factory by which a succession of identical items is progressively assembled." Is this not how Steinways are built?


Again, this is the very essence of mass production. Nothing to be ashamed of or offended by. In fact, I'd suggest that it would be a problem if Steinway were not producing pianos this way...on an assembly line.




I disagree. Take the AMG company for example. Starting in the sixties, two guys who were passionate about Mercedes and performance started improving Mercedes' products. I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd claim that they didn't turn out a product that was superior to the already fine quality that Mercedes turned out. In fact, Mercedes themselves agreed so much that they started buying into AMG in the 1990s, and bought AMG outright in 2005. That was two passionate craftsmen who surpassed the production quality of the original maker of the cars they worked on.


Supply and demand is a fickle mistress. Perhaps they don't sell for as much, but perhaps the profit margin is still quite good. Obviously, rebuilding Steinways is a viable business. If we had real data to analyze, I wouldn't be surprised if the profit margin on a rebuilt core is greater than the profit margin a dealer earns on a new Steinway, even if the sales price isn't as high. In fact, anyone who [reasonably] believes that the rebuild's quality is higher, knowing that the price is lower, would be a fool not to buy the rebuild (IMO).

Special message for Steinway salesmen:



Interesting acknowledgment, because -- someone correct me if I'm wrong; I don't like to put words in people's mouths -- I believe that Ed says good rebuilders can turn out a product that surpasses factory quality.



Capability is an odd word to use in this context (IMO). I'm reminded of the legend about Beethoven saying something to the effect of princes being a dime a dozen, but that there was only one Beethoven (I'm paraphrasing, of course). If a good rebuilder and a Steinway salesman met for lunch to discuss pianos, and -- God forbid -- they were both run over by the proverbial bus while crossing the street, I suspect it would be much easier to find someone capable of stepping into the showroom to sell Steinways than it would be to find someone capable of stepping into the rebuilder's shoes.

I'm sorry so many of you took offense to what I stated. We have over 50 used Steinways in various stages of rebuilding. I am very familiar with the rebuilding process. It is a part of our business. All of our rebuilds come out very nice and we are as proud of them as you all are of yours.

I happen to have the unique perspective of selling new and used which I thought might help the OP.

I also happen to be one of the few Steinway retailers that are willing to voice an opinion on these forums.

To the OP question- $55,000 for a 2012 M is a reasonable price.

'Tough crowd here Ryan, but despite this I think you've done well in your presentation so please don't be discouraged. Thanks for your input and participation - oh and welcome to the forum (a little late, sorry).

Regards,
Andy

I doubt that the gross profit on a piano rebuild is very high. There is a real data point from Richard Davenport, a master rebuilder in LA, who said in the documentary "American Grand" that if it weren't for his other work, he'd go bankrupt doing restorations. He even joked about how much money he was going to lose on the piano restoration that was featured in the film. He said for him a full rebuild takes 6-8 months, with a team of a half dozen highly skilled piano technicians. They work on only one restoration at a time. If each tech works, say, one full week/month on the project for the 6-8 months, and let's say at $25/hour, the labor cost alone will be $36,000 to $48,000. If you then add materials and overhead, Davenport's costs are starting to approach the upper limit of what he can charge, which would be the price of an equivalent new Steinway. Thus, it looks likely that a rebuilder of his caliber is operating in the single digits for gross margin.

Now look at Steinway's margins on a new piano. They enjoy economy of scale for parts and overhead, and they have zero tear-down time. The only area I can see where they have a higher cost than a rebuilder is in sales cost, that is, the cost for showrooms and to carry a commissioned sales force, though this additional sales overhead is partially offset by the higher number of inventory turns they get. Steinway is privately held, but in one of the last SEC reports they published before going private, they reported a 33% gross margin (margin across an entire company is not the same as margin on an average piano sale...but it shouldn't be too far off if the majority of their business is piano sales).

John

One important technical specification that almost all piano manufacturers and many rebuilders fail to meet is the proper shape of the V-bar. This affects the treble tone and the longevity of the strings. The V-bar should be a definite V-shape and it also should not be made from metal that approaches the hardness of piano wire. This is not to pick just on Steinway but sometimes they harden the V-bar and the treble tone is ruined. All the Yamahas I have examined had too hard V-bars as well.

Many top end piano rebuilders make sure the V-bar is shaped to a definite V shape.

If people would realize [many do..] what bombshell $ 55,000 buys in today's market, above opinion may IMHO need to be revisited.

Having said that, everybody can spend his/her money as sees fit.

Good luck in your choice - may it bring lasting joy to your life!

Norbert

+1

6' 10" Bluthner

Just one example. I apologize if this is not allowed (I'm not affiliated in any way).

Even if Bluthner isn't your thing, this is a 6' 10" Tier 1 piano for less. It will smoke any 5'7" piano, any day of the week.