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Hi.

I have recently acquired a Steinway "Victory" piano. It is in terrible shape and has suffered from being abandoned in a remote location which experiences huge variations in temperature and humidity, for many years. Before this period the piano was played hard and was probably quite worn out before it was abandoned.

I have brought it home and put it in my "guitar" room, which I try to keep at a constant humidity in the winter. I have had it tuned, but the technician is remaining neutral in his opinion on whether it will ever be a "musical instrument" again.

I am not a piano player but I do play the guitar fairly seriously and have signed up for lessons. I do not intend to play chopin, rock and roll is fine with me so I kind of hope this piano can enjoy its retirement at my house without being bothered too much with "restoration" efforts. The veneer is all cracked, and some of the big timbers under the lid have cracks too. The soundboard, amazingly, looks intact, and it is playable although it needs some adjustments to the escapement. It remains to be seen whether it will stay in tune, After the first tuning it went about half a semitone flat, I had the technician look at it after about a month and he was a little disappointed but we tuned it again so I guess we'll see what happens.

I kind of like the piano and I also like its funny green colour. I was hoping someone here knew more about this particular model, or someone here also has one and would like to discuss it. I am thinking of making a bench for it with the same green colour, the original one is obviously long gone.

The Steinway Victory pianos I’ve seen were basic small verticals. They were, I think, standard small Steinway vertical pianos of the time but with fairly plain cabinetry painted some horrible military green. I think the idea was to protect the pianos in case the installation was over-run by the enemy—the color would scare off most anybody. (Oops, sorry, I just remembered you said you kind of liked it….)

We’ve refinished two of them and in each case found quite lovely walnut veneers under the green.

As with most Steinway verticals, they can be some difficult to tune but once they are up to pitch for a while it should be reasonably stable.

ddf

Del, was one of those the piano I picked up at the NCO club from McClellan AFB? I don't remember if you helped me learn how to put a decent finish on that one or not. As I recall it had also been painted over in blue, red and white though I don't remember the order of application, in some sort of house paint. Patriotic, heh?

I still see it every now and then. It was the Steinway small console (40"-42") with rounded arms. They referred to it as the GI Field piano when I inquired of the factory and I believe it was the only piano they really made during the war as they were involved in war production like everyone else.

I do remember the action was rather compact and used billings flanges. That color would be referred to as 'olive drab'.

No. But now that you mention it I’ll have to make that three that I’ve come in contact with. I probably forget it because it wasn’t yucky green. That one was also walnut if I recall.

ddf

Yes, it was green lacquer, after we got the red, white, and blue latex off. The walnut was nice but damaged. It's now a satin ebony.

There is one of these pianos on display at the new Musical Instrument Museum here in Phoenix. The cabinet and keys are in excellent shape - but I have no idea what it looks like on the inside - much less how it sounds.

I'm not sure why the picture I attached failed to come up. I'll try again. I don't know why people find the green paint "Yucky". Well, I guess it is sort of yucky but it's also pretty neat. It's like having an episode of M.A.S.H. in your music room!

I'm having trouble adding pictures. Rats. Well, picture a Willy's Jeep, except in piano form.

try to upload to imgur.com

No registration required. We use that on Reddit

Here's one I Googled:

Good thing they put some tissues on top of that piano. When I saw the picture, I was moved (read: shocked) to tears.

Here's mine. The one above is in Eureka, Canada. It's not far from where mine came from.

thank goodness i have tissues in my office.

It positively screams "military" and is in the same class as all that wartime steel furniture which is likewise ubiquitous and enduring; built to withstand a good bombing. This piano belongs in a room with nothing but that kind of furniture and Venetian blinds on the windows with maybe that horrible orange plaid used in drapes of the same period. The walls could be painted in one of those period shades from the war. One could also have pics on the walls, one of Iwu Jima, another of the GI's liberating Paris, etc. Internally there's probably less wrong than with many other pianos of the same or older vintage. Needs a recovering of the keyboard badly. Were it mine, I'd probably try and refinish it in exactly the same color. Some things are best left unchanged.

Oh, COME ON. It would be one thing if someone bought a nice piano and painted it like that, but this piano was MADE like that. It's always been green. I think it's pretty cool. I can tell you it looks terrific in my music room and it has a very interesting history. It is too bad it's so beaten up, but other than being abandoned for the last 13 years, it earned its scars being played by military and civilian people on a "hardship" assignment in a high Arctic weather research station. The keys have cigarette burns and the top has drink rings, and you can tell by the state of the felt on the hammers that it was no hangar queen; it was played and played and played. It has history, and you can still play it: my friend came over a week or so ago and played some pretty good boogie-woogie on it and said he really liked it, so I think it still has some life left.

This is what I'm going to do: I'm going to have it fixed up internally over the next year or so, and I'm going to make a bench for it. The bench I'm going to paint green, and then I'm going to beat the tar out of it to make it match the piano. I'm a guitar guy, and I've seen and been astounded by the fact that guitar manufacturers are now offering brand-new guitars that have been "reliced" to look old and beat-up. I think this is ludicrous, but on the other hand here is a piano which is still mechanically serviceable, has a really neat history, and has real stripes. I think I'm going to leave it the way it is, and just replace the missing bench with a credible-looking replica. Apparently the piano originally came with a matching bench. And of course I've signed up for piano lessons. I've always wanted to play the piano.

P.S: I thought it was ugly too. But then I saw the "Steinway and Sons" logo and became curious about its history. Now I rather like how it looks. But I understand if it makes other people a little ill.

That sounds like a great plan, Keith. Good luck and enjoy that piano.

Amen! Enjoy it for many years!

Your piano has real character. I like your plan. Enjoy your veteran piano!

Be proud of that beast! I'd love to have one! I feel similarly about my old acrosonic, made in the early 50s. I can sit and play and imagine all the others who have played on it as it was passed down through someones family and ended up in my little old living room :P play it with pride!

Keith S:

You might want to check with the Steinway factory in Queens, NY for some information about their WWII military pianos.

When PIANOWORLD arranged a tour a few years ago, we all saw one sitting around in the office. I have to admit that we had gone there on the tour to see how they crafted their grand pianos so we really did not pay very much attention to it.

I remember that it and the finish on it were in great shape. I do not really know if it left the factory unlike the well used model that you have.

Maybe soneone else who took the tour has better memories (or photos) available.

I recently read a short piece about the Steinway victory pianos, during WWII they built three thousand of these pianos for air dropping to the troops(in addition to the gliders it built to carry troops behind enemy lines). Also the pianos came complete with tuning tools and sheet music when air dropped to the troops. (A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD by Spike Carlson, pg 133, chapter 4)
You definitely have a unique piano in terms of history. I would imagine the factory could give you the exact information you desire such as date of manufacture and when it left the factory, the military, which is entirely paper driven could most likely give you the complete history of the movements of the peice (no pun intended).