Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What to do with old upright

OK. I just shot some photos. I'm glad I did. I'd never taken a really close look at the insides. I think it does have a metal frame of some sort.
But look at the bridges and the horrible stringing job!

This is a good example of differing tastes. While it is certainly unique and the cabinet woodwork looks excellent, in my opinion it is horrendously ugly. I would not want it near my house even if the innards wire in good condition which they apparently are not.

I'd put it in a landfill and hug my new piano.

Gee, Roger, thanks for sharing.

Forget Roger...he obviously likes new pianos. ;-)

Many of us love it! And to many of us, a shiny black polyester box just doesn't do it for a quality upright. (broken record here)

W.Scott - I agree, it would be a shame and thanks for the alternatives.

I would suggest several things that modern mfg could look into from your piano:

Quality of cabinet workmanship

Quality of veneer and its placement

Open fretwork in front - both at the pianist's ear level AND beneath - allowing the pianist to 'hear' what is being played instead of the current 'it is inside the box' sound

Music desk which comes out and is slanted to further the sound coming to the pianist and large enough to hold two page music

Beauty

Besides the PTech musuem, there are other piano museums that might be interested. For example here in Mass, there is the Frederick Museum (do a search above for info)

LL

I would just rebuild it to the point where it just plays if possible. None of the old uprts. can be tuned to A440.Maybe you can do minimal action work and repin it with oversized pins if the pinblock is not damaged to the point where that is not possible. Why did they say why it would not stay in tune to the point of not just restringing it. If the pinblock is history as for
pin holes or structurally,you could possibly reinforce it and than drill and dowel the pin holes and than redrill for smaller sized pins.
Rod will probably tell you changing a pinblock or soundboard in an uprt is more work than one would want to do Good luck!

Sorry,didn't read or see pics in all the prior posts. Questions kinda anwsered

If you have the space, I would keep it as a beautiful piece of furniture, as Monica suggests. And then enquire exactly what work would be needed to enable it to hold its tune, and how much that would cost. Then at some point in the future you could get the work done and have a fabulous second piano.

Yep I agree David .. I think its the most beautiful piano i've saw.

Well Roger, sounds exactly like the piano for you doesn't it?

Gotcha

I knew it had to have a plate (just didn't get around to posting before the interior pics showed up). There were no American pianos built in the 1880s (probably not even later than the 50s) that didn't have a plate of some kind. Yours has a 3/4 plate. Nothing wrong with that.

The Rappaports are top notch technicians. I am sure when they said it would never hold a tuning, they meant that before a whole lot of work would be done on it, surpassing the value of the musical instrument by far, that it could not be expected to hold the tuning.

At this point I have to agree with y'all. I'll keep it and try to investigate more about what exactly can and cannot be done (and for how much).

I do a lot of tuning of old pianos for people who cannot afford a regular tuner. Many of them are bad enough that tuners have refused to tune them. I don't charge much and tune them as good as they can be tuned so at least they have a piano. hence the 'tuner of land fill pianos.

I didn't intend the comment as an insult, just an interesting observation.

And, in truth, I do prefer new pianos although I am none too excited by the ultra shiny black. There are a lot of options between the 2 though.