Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum A New Piano Brand is Coming

Where's the marketing genius in introducing a new mid level line? That seems to be the status quo for many piano companies. How's this any different then Hoffman, Irmler, Boston, Vogel etc?

This line is to replace May Berlin. May Berlin was not a mid-priced line, but an entry level line. The Vogel has been Schimmel's mid-priced line for a while. So presumably the new line will be entry-level, with a fanciful MSRP that retailers can discount generously while still making some money.. If that doesn't work, Scmimmel will try something else. There must be other names of family members they can draw on.

Owners of Chinese May Berlin pianos will be pleased to know that their pianos will now skyrocket in value due to their rarity.

Presumably

I'm on the edge of my seat with anticipation... another entry level piano coming out of Asia (claiming its rich European heritage) - sounds truly unique and special...And the name, that is a triumph - I always wanted a piano that was named after a hobbit...

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William, I heard the next piano line will be the Murray Schimmel made by Peral River. Murray settled outside Sheboygan,WI and was a distant cousin to Fridolin. He was known for inventing the reverse concave floating piano. Half piano and half boat. You could actually play while sailing and it had player piano type pedal pumps for propulsion.

This is getting so confusing.

Let's see -- Schimmel of Braunschweig is trying to emulate Schimmel of Faribault via Asia? Uff da!

Schimmel of Sheboygan (Murray) Founded Schimmel & Sons Sausages which specialized in Braunschweiger and obviously is in neither Germany nor Minnesota. It's not the wurst thing that can happen, however.

It can become even more confusing when you understand that the first USA Schimmels were actually Schimmel-Nelsons. By about the mid-1890's, Searick Nelson left the company. Aha, you might think. You'd be wrong. Searick never cabled up with Cable. That was H.P. Nelson. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a Nelson & Nelson, nor a Schimmel & Schimmel.

One of the few giraffes that I have played was a Schimmel-Nelson at the National Music Museum in South Dakota. Well, it was old and tall and didn't speak German, or even 'Sotan, eh?

I'm waiting for the new Willy, Fred, & Murray pianos built in Wittenberg Wisconsin. That's near Wausau which isn't in Poland or even in Asia.

Alas

I'm on the edge of my seat with anticipation... another entry level piano coming out of Asia (claiming its rich European heritage) - sounds truly unique and special...And the name, that is a triumph - I always wanted a piano that was named after a hobbit...

Not to be argumentative, but you are dead wrong. It's not an entry-level piano coming out of Asia claiming its rich European heritage. It's another contract piano made to fit a European maker's willingness to pay. The Piano does not claim to have a European heritage. The Chinese piano factory that manufactured it does not claim to have a European heritage. The marketing department of the European company that ordered it, most likely paying as little as possible, is claiming the European heritage.

Parsons can make good pianos, as can other Chinese factories. They have proven that. If it is true as someone implied that Schimmel was unhappy with what they got for their money from Parsons, it may well be the case that they got exactly what they were willing to pay for, and nothing more than that.

I disagree completely with all those who disparage a new model simply because it's entry-level. I only brought that fact up in my post to correct a mistaken impression. Entry-level is a product marketing term to remind people when they are buying said product that ultimately they need to come back and upgrade. Beyond that, the term has no precise meaning.

There are plenty of pianos at different levels of price that outprrform their more expesnvie cousins. And there are plenty of people for whom any new acoustic piano is a luxury, for some an out-of-reach luxury. Poo-poohing the entry-level seems a bit snooty, considering economic reality.

If the piano industry is to survive, it needs the products at the so-called entry level (IOW the products that most people can hope to afford) far more than it needs the high end stuff. The high end niche market is okay for small production companies that don't expect to sell a lot of pianos and build at a rate and speed to fit their sales expectations. But that's not Schimmel's background. In terms of Euorpean factories, they have fairly high capacity. A solitary focus on upper end pianos that those who frequent Internet forums love to discuss endlessly but are unlikely to ever buy will leave a company like Schimmel in a bad place.

It's also true that most owned entry-level pianos stand ready to outperform their owners. Decisions to upgrade are more often than not based on an unsettled feeling on the part of an owner that his piano somehow doesn't measure up to something else that's out there and within or just beyond his spending reach.

Occasionally an entry-level piano raises the bar a little on what's available at its price. That's happened a lot over the last ten years in my opinion. If no one competed there, those improvements would be unlikely to happen. I'm not saying that the Schimmel OEM job from Young Chang will do that, but the piano will speak for itself soon enough.

So for those who honestly feel that news of an entry-level piano is a colossal bore, why not just be silent? Steve was simply reporting industry news. Last time I checked, that's what this forum is supposedly about.

Not to be argumentative, but you are dead wrong. It's not an entry-level piano coming out of Asia claiming its rich European heritage. It's another contract piano made to fit a European maker's willingness to pay. The Piano does not claim to have a European heritage. The Chinese piano factory that manufactured it does not claim to have a European heritage. The marketing department of the European company that ordered it, most likely paying as little as possible, is claiming the European heritage.

Parsons can make good pianos, as can other Chinese factories. They have proven that. If it is true as someone implied that Schimmel was unhappy with what they got for their money from Parsons, it may well be the case that they got exactly what they were willing to pay for, and nothing more than that.

I disagree completely with all those who disparage a new model simply because it's entry-level. I only brought that fact up in my post to correct a mistaken impression. Entry-level is a product marketing term to remind people when they are buying said product that ultimately they need to come back and upgrade. Beyond that, the term has no precise meaning.

There are plenty of pianos at different levels of price that outprrform their more expesnvie cousins. And there are plenty of people for whom any new acoustic piano is a luxury, for some an out-of-reach luxury. Poo-poohing the entry-level seems a bit snooty, considering economic reality.

If the piano industry is to survive, it needs the products at the so-called entry level (IOW the products that most people can hope to afford) far more than it needs the high end stuff. The high end niche market is okay for small production companies that don't expect to sell a lot of pianos and build at a rate and speed to fit their sales expectations. But that's not Schimmel's background. In terms of Euorpean factories, they have fairly high capacity. A solitary focus on upper end pianos that those who frequent Internet forums love to discuss endlessly but are unlikely to ever buy will leave a company like Schimmel in a bad place.

It's also true that most owned entry-level pianos stand ready to outperform their owners. Decisions to upgrade are more often than not based on an unsettled feeling on the part of an owner that his piano somehow doesn't measure up to something else that's out there and within or just beyond his spending reach.

Occasionally an entry-level piano raises the bar a little on what's available at its price. That's happened a lot over the last ten years in my opinion. If no one competed there, those improvements would be unlikely to happen. I'm not saying that the Schimmel OEM job from Young Chang will do that, but the piano will speak for itself soon enough.

So for those who honestly feel that news of an entry-level piano is a colossal bore, why not just be silent? Steve was simply reporting industry news. Last time I checked, that's what this forum is supposedly about.