Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum 1969 Yamaha P2 Nippon Gakki for $500 - Good Idea?

I've been looking for a starter piano my 7-year-old can learn on, and a neighbor recently offered us his 1969 Yamaha P2 Nippon Gakki for $500. This price would include bringing it to our curb. Not knowing anything about pianos, I wasn't sure if this was a good idea or no. I would welcome advice!

Here are the details I have on this instrument:



There are pictures of the piano here: EBay

What do you think?

Thank you for your time!

you did not mention if you play piano yourself, or if your child has a piano teacher. at a minimum, you should consult with someone who knows what a $500. piano should perform like, have her or him play it and check it out inside(especially) and out. keep in mind that two tunings with adjustments, regulation und so weiter could easily cost you another $500. this could be anything from a nice bargain starter piano, to something too close to its expiration date that your child gets no joy from learning music on it. you are doing something great for your kid, good luck.

You should have this piano inspected by an independent technician prior to purchase, to make sure the major systems are in order and that it will hold a tuning. Otherwise, it could be promising. The two red flags I see from the pictures are what look like stains on the top of some of the hammers, and that it's being kept in a garage in Vermont, which is definitely not ideal.

If this is your maximum budget for a complete beginner, you may be better suited for a new, 88-key fully weighted digital piano setup in the $700-1200 price range instead. So long as you don't spill anything in it, your maintenance cost is essentially zero until it comes time to upgrade 3-5 years down the line (if at all). Economically, consider the total cost of ownership: help with moving, 1-2 tunings a year, whatever repairs come up, and little to no depreciation for the older Yamaha, vs. the purchase price of a new digital piano which will lose half its value in 5 years, but requires no maintenance and has a warranty for the first 1-5 years of ownership.

The Yamaha website says this was not made for the US market. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it means it spent its youth in Japan probably and was brought over in a container load of used pianos. Most of these grey market pianos are in decent shape. You should be able to expect it to be serviceable at least as long as a digital piano given proper care.

Thank you everyone for your feedback! I played piano many years ago but it's been a good decade so I'm not sure how a piano should sound anymore. (This piano would probably be for me too.) It sounds like this piano may not be a good deal, though I will ask our son's piano teacher to take a look at it. $500 isn't our budget, it's just what our neighbor offered and sounded way better than the $2K price attached to other pianos the same age that have been offered to us. There isn't a piano store where we live so it's something of a maze to find an instrument. The nearest large piano store I've heard of is in Montreal, which is about 2 hours away from us here in northern VT.