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Dear Friends,
Many of my customers ask me about the value of their piano, and I'm sure that happens to you, too. Some want to sell their piano; some are just curious.
How do you establish the value of a used piano? The way I see it, you can;

1) go with Larry Fine's numbers in The Piano Book;
2) go with craigslist postings (which only list an asking price)
3) go with ebay postings (which you must follow to get a final price)

My question is this; what do YOU do when your customer asks the value of their piano? I want to be as accurate as possible.

Just thinking...

If you do watch Craig's and Ebay, plus have customers tell you what they just paid for the used ones they are buying, you may have noticed as I have that prices have been plummeting!

Individuals selling on their own are really at a disadvantage. Frankly, an opinion that I offer must be weighted strongly toward the prices that I am seeing, relying less on traditional evaluation.

I saw a small piano this week, needing typical light work for a 40ish year old piano. I told the customer that they could likely buy a hardly used similar piano for less off of Craig's list than even those moderate repairs. That was honestly what I have been seeing. For example, I tuned a solid Baldwin studio which had been bought for $600 individual to individual. A lot of $400 - $600 sales going on for solid consoles.

Not to speak ill of any dealers, but I am soooooo glad that I am in repair and rebuilding and not in retail now!!!

I always try to make them understand the difference between what the piano is worth, and what someone will actually pay for it. I give them what I think is a general ball park figure of what might be a fair price to ask. If they want a more accurate price, I steer them towards the Blue Book of Pianos website. I have never used their appraisal service, but understand that they will give you an appraisal for $20.

I have noticed with falling prices on pianos it is getting harder to sell needed repairs to customers. They would rather spend a few hundred on a different piano than put the money into their existing piano.

As far as appraising a piano I look at ebay, what I have seen dealers selling equal pianos for, craigslist etc... Factor in the condition of the piano and give them a dollar range that the piano would fall in.

I wouldn't refer people to Blue Book. They take the person money and give them a value for their piano sight unseen. I have seen people with pianos ready for the dump, trying sell them for $5000 plus.

My rule of thumb is to offer it at a price that seems reasonable. It the piano does not sell, the price is too high. If it does, it is too low.

I overhear the conversations going on between customers (who have an old piano they are trying to get rid of) and management in stores as well as observe which people on Craigslist sell their piano quickly (and at what prices) and which pianos simply sit there unsold week after week, month after month. I also find out from people who just bought a piano what they paid, which is a good indicator of actual market.

In my region, this is very much a bottomfeeder/vulture market with pianos that are less than the best available going for little or even nothing, people literally giving pianos like spinets or "antique" uprights away because they can't sell them but have to get out of their houses (and often having a hard time giving them away), old and/or neglected grands of average brand names (the majority) selling in the low thousand$ or even hundred$.

I also overhear many customers coming into stores looking for used pianos and sticking to their guns they should be able to find good pianos very, very cheap, like a few hundred bucks. At one time such customers were rarities and basically blown off because they are so unrealistic, but these days they can make up the majority of the shoppers coming in.

A very good condition, fairly recent model of a desirable brand, OTOH, seems to be fairly priced at about 1/2 of current new piano "street" price (the actual selling price after all "for you" discounts are factored in- a fraction of "suggested retail") if it's selling out of a store, a bit less if it's a private sale- because buyers generally feel that in a private sale they should be paying less than they would pay to a store.

This is what's happening in MY market. What's happening in a different market has to be figured out locally.

Ha ha! I've noticed further that if the buyer starts bargaining, the price is just right and they're working to get a "deal"!

The market determines values for used goods. What a used good sells for is what the market will bear for that particular item.

The variances will be market saturation, lack thereof, or location.

I guess it depends on how prepared the customer is to buy. We have always offered courtesy delivery on everything not as a gimmick but because nothing gets my goat faster than seeing a customer drag 6 or 7 body builders in from the local gym that still cannot budge a piano two feet or bring a station wagon not big enough.

The craigslisters get those people too that think AH ! I got a steal on this and now they have ruined floors doors and walls, ruts in the yard etc. Pianos flying out of pick up trucks, rolling into the cab of a u-haul, falling down stairs or off walkways.

So the moral is if you want to sell something in todays market you have to offer something desireable and painless. This is a gotta have it now!!! Society so you have to be able to offer whatever it is now. We've even gotten away from refinishing because people want it yesterday and that may still not be fast enough.

There is also the new offer less than half without ever seeing it in person. I tried this on a new Kenworth truck and it didn't work for me