Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards 1969 Wurlitzer model 270 Baby Grand Butterfly

I recently purchased a 1969 Wurlitzer model 270 Baby Grand "Butterfly" electronic piano for my son to learn on. (He decided he didn't like it, so we bought a $100 old upright off Craigslist for him.)

The Wurlitzer is in decent condition: it plays and has that vintage electric piano sound...the vibrato doesn't work...the original music stand is missing...the foot pedal is there but isn't hooked up...it has the original finish, but with some scratches, chips, dings and crazing...one leg has an amateur repair up at the mounting block...stuff like that. All things considered, I'd probably rate it a 6.5 out of 10.

Anyway, since I had this thing sitting around not getting used I looked it up online and found out it's somewhat rare, so I decided to stick it on eBay. I'm not asking about price or soliciting a sale. I simply want some advice...

Since this is (apparently) something of a collector's item, should I attempt to fix the leg and vibrato and clean it up with a basic refinishing kit from the local home store - or should I leave it exactly as is for a collector to have it professionally restored?

Thanks for your time...

Leave it...if it is rare and collectible the new owner will have their own preferences about what to do with it.

Good luck with your auction.

Steve

Thanks Steve. I wiped on a few coats of lemon oil just to see how the finish would take it. Looked really nice at first, but dried kinda splotchy (for lack of a better word.) I have no idea if it will sell - and actually it's fine either way.

I was laid off in August this year and had to sell the 1971 Maverick street/strip hot rod (I had bought for my son and I as a father/son project) to pay bills. If the piano doesn't sell, maybe we'll switch gears (no pun intended) and try our hand at restoring it.

Looks like the piano may have a few more problems than originally thought. (Life...lol) I'm going to pull the auction and we're going to try to restore it sometime after the new year so I'll probably be back here asking for advice soon.