Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum 1980 Mason and Hamlin BB or Kawai KG-6?

Looked at a few pianos in my area.

One is a 1980 Mason and Hamlin BB 7'. Kept in kind of poor condition with the lid open all the time, exposed to sunlight, and the bass strings show some kind of corrosion and the treble strings are dark gray now. The action still feels decent and it sounds OK (needs to be tuned though). Moderate hammer wear.
Asking $15k but I think I would pay $14k.
Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/z7ph0

Then I looked at a 1972 Kawai KG-6 7' 4". It's in good condition, strings don't show any kind of corrosion, but it still would need action/voicing work. Little hammer wear. The entire right-side rim of the piano has cracks in the finish (not really important for me but affects the value)
Asking $16k but given the age and cosmetic damage I would offer $14k.
Pictures: http://imgur.com/a/I7KgY

Other option is a 1982 Kawai KG-2C 5'10" from a piano teacher (but still only lightly used), in excellent condition. Kept in tune, action is OK, needs some voicing. $8000 and it's a pretty nice piano. I'd definitely be happy with it, but I do want a bigger piano...

Also considering from Rick Jones: a Yamaha C7 1980 7'6" for $26k. Sounds pretty great.


So I was thinking that the Mason and Hamlin has the best base piano compared to other 1980's Kawai or Yamaha Concert Grands. Is it worth doing a partial restoration of it, which would probably include changing the strings? It's hard to judge if it sounds better since neither pianos have been tuned for at least a year.

Of course I know the usual bit of bringing a technician to take a look, but I want to know if it's even worth considering the Mason and Hamlin. If it costs like $10k to do a partial restore, then maybe I should just buy the Yamaha C7 and get something that I already know sounds great. But maybe the BB will end up sounding a lot better?

Personally I would go after the Mason BB after an inspection.

No other comments? Yeah, I think the obvious choice is to go with the Mason BB and do a restoration of it after taking a tech to go check it out. But it is a bit risky.

Actually, the obvious choice for me personally would be to keep looking. If you can really swing up to $26K for a grand, there are other viable options out there. I've not been very impressed by the Aeolian era M&H's that I've had the opportunity to play.

If you are considering buying a piano that you will hire a piano technician to do work on to bring up the quality the first step before looking at prospective pianos is to find the technician you want to work with.

I love going over Aeolian BB's and once rebuilt they thrill me like no other piano. But it does involve considerable work and modification to bring out all the possibilities the basic design offers.

It is the technician who makes the tone and touch in a fine piano so that is where you should start.

Well, I ended up buying the Yamaha C7 from Rick Jones. I already liked its sound a lot and they lowered the price a pretty decent amount, included a Dampp Chaser, and it was just less risk and effort than buying a BB to restore. Here was it being played, although it got tuned and voiced again recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v13E1mGgsM

Wow it sounds really good, definitely recording/concert level to my ears