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Is a piano new even if the year it was built isn't current? As in you go to the dealer and the piano that is on the floor was built say in 2010 or 11. This piano would also never have been sold to anyone before so you get the full guarantee.

I'm not really sure what you're asking. As you say, it would have the guarantee of a "new" piano. Two other considerations: Somebody in the biz check my advice, please. I believe the dealers incur some cost when a piano sits on the floor unsold for some time. You might get a better deal on such an instrument. Second, the dealer would surely have had to keep a 2010 in tune on the floor, and thus such a piano would have already had some of the multiple tunings new pianos need. Hope this helps.

I think that a piano is new in the circumstances you describe: it has never been sold and it is accompanied by a new piano warranty that begins to run on the date of purchase. A car is new even if it is from a past model year, if it has never been sold. . . .And pianos don't really have model years the same way cars do anyway.

Moreover, my understanding of piano manufacture is that the serial number can go onto a piano substantially before the piano is completed, so time can pass that way as well. In other words, a piano with a 2010 serial number might not make it onto the sales floor until 2011 or even 2012.

But remember one important fact about this post: its content is worth exactly what you are paying for it!

My zero cents.

Definitely - my first grand had been on the dealer's floor for a couple of years - like nobody was buying high end pianos during the GFC. I know of a new 9' which had been on the dealer's floor for about 3 years - still "new", full warranty.

Depending on the year, I would consider it "new, old stock".

On the other hand, I've read there is an advantage to buying a piano that has been on the sales floor a while... like tuning stability.

To me, the only thing to be concerend about is resale value... since you would be taking a hit anyway in terms of devaluation after purchase, you don't want additional devaluation due to being new, old stock.

Just my .02.

Rick

No disagreement with anything written by anyone, but I would add that if you're asking the question because of a specific interest in a specific piano, it's a good idea to find out the provenance of that piano -- where and how it's spent its time since it was first delivered to a retailer.

Some 'new' pianos have been used for recitals at the dealership. Some have been moved back and forth to venues for recitals and music camps. Some have been out at music schools, even in practice rooms. Some have sat uncrated because the vendor was stuck with too much inventory. Some have been on the sales floor and received the beneficial break-in attention that Rick mentions. Some have been transferred from the stock of another retailer, usually a failed shop that went out of business. All these situations are different, the only common factor being that the piano has never been registered as sold.

A good retailer will tell you the exact history of the piano if you ask and he knows. If information is sketchy or you have doubts about its veracity, you can sometimes get help by supplying the serial number to the manufacturer or his distributor. This will also be useful in confirming the manufacturer warranty. There are a few 'new' pianos out there whose warranties are meaningless because the manufacturer or former distributor is out of business.

Even the resale value will be relatively unaffected, in that the resale value of a say 10-year old piano is not significantly different than the same model at 12 years old.

Based on inventory management, LIFO or FIFO a piano may not hit a sales floor for a year after production. In the case of high-end special finishes, it could easily be longer.

i just paid deposit to a piano that was manufactured in 2007. the dealer could not sell it so decide to give a 66% off MSRP. if the piano is in perfect condition (which i need to check with a techician next week), then its an exccelent trade off.

imo piano manufactured in 2010 deserves a bit more discount than same piano manufactured in 2012. but their functionality should be equal (if all other things being equal)

One of the things to be considered is the invoice cost, to the dealer, at the time the dealership took posession of the piano. If the actual cost in 2007 was $10,000 and the same model is now invoiced for $15,000, the discount should be evaluated based on the '07 price.

A discont of 66% off MSRP sounds great, but it must be thought of in the economics of the transaction in 2007. Of course, that information is rarely available to the buyer, but a comparison might be done using the MSRP of the different years.

You need to look out for different things depending on the piano. On a Pleyel vertical, I'd easily be convinced that it had been sitting idle for a few years based on the company's shaky history in the past decade and its resulting low visibility in the market. I remember seeing a couple of new Pleyel uprights in the SoCal market that were 7 or 6 years old and still waiting for a buyer. If the shop happened to be in Quebec and catered to a French-Canadian separatist clientele, maybe things would be different.

If I ran into a Yamaha U-1 offered new but three or four years old from date of manufacture, I'd be wondering whose teaching studio or practice room it had been spending its time in, or if was B stock.

On that Pleyel, I'd want to verify the true date and even the place of manufacture with Pleyel (if anyone there is still answering the phone or handling e-mails). I'd also want to know if I'm dealing with a manufacturer warranty that is now meaningless and if so, how solid the store warranty is. Even if all that news is good news, I wouldn't commit until the piano had been subjected to an independent inspection at the shop. Waiting to do that until home delivery complicates things.

The issue of dealer invoice cost on the unit sold vs. its replacement cost to the dealer is a complicated one. There are desirable pianos that involve a lengthy wait and higher cost for a dealer to replace, but in cases where the thing is old new stock that's simply been sitting around crated or uncrated, he usually has no intention of replacing it, and most likely has dropped the line completely. His main interest at that point is in seeing that the last of the litter leaves his kennel.