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Absolutely agree with that.

Whilst Steinway re-builds (and I mean by a very good re-builder) may not be immediately sellable for more or even equal to the total amount spent, they still represent a huge saving over the cost of a new one. And if the work is well done it represents far better value imho. So if your aim is to sell on for a profit, you may like to look at a different investment, but if you're buying a piano to actually use and keep you can save a lot of money this way.

Of course if money is no object and you want to take your pick from a range of instruments then a factory visit and selection is a luxury available to very few.

Also, you need to remember, a piano is really not a liquid asset. They are like boats--extremely easy to buy but hard to sell.

One has to try and sell a piano in a private sale to get the best price for it. Dealers can get pianos for wholesale and sell them for about twice what they pay for them so they are not going to offer much for a used piano. By adding a middleman(dealer, rebuilder, tech) one will usually get a lower price than a direct private sale. I don't mean to imply it's usually easy to sell a piano but just point out the buyers you mentioned will generally not give one the best deal.

Very true, pianoloverus.

The first grand piano I ever purchased was a late 1980's model Tokai G180 (5'10"). I paid $4250.00 for it because I didn't know any better at the time. It served me well for a few years, till I decided I wanted something better. I advertised it (Tokai G180) for sale @ $4000 and didn't get much response. I called a piano dealer and asked what he might offer for it. He said $1500 at best, pending inspection. I didn't want to sell it that cheap, so I lowered my price to $3500 and got a few responses to my ad. A guy from Atlanta came down to look at it, who was a trained concert pianist. He could play better than I will ever imagine playing. He offered me $3000 for it and I accepted. That was twice what the dealer offered, and in line with your comments.

Of course, a Steinway is certainly at the top of the food-chain and commands the highest price of most any other brand. Yet, and still, my philosophy remains true. If you buy a piano with the intentions of reselling at anywhere close to what you may have paid, you will be sorely disappointed. The only exception is if you bought the piano highly discounted to begin with.

It is best to buy a piano that you really like and appreciate, for the purpose of enjoying it and playing it day in and day out for as long as possible. Although re-sale is important, it is not a guarantee of recouping anywhere near the initial investment.

All the best!

Rick

In that case, look at lots of other very good makes other than Steinway. You may get more for the Steinway name in the future, but you definitely pay more for it now. The financial hope is that Steinway will depreciate more slowly than other makes. I doubt that that would happen to a sufficient degree to be worth the opportunity cost of the extra money tied up in the piano over the years.

Look at Baldwin, Boesendorfer, Steingraber, Mason & Hamlin, Chickering, Knabe, Petrof, Estonia, Yamaha, Kawai -- there are lots of fine names. Of course for those that are no longer in business, go for the real ones, not mass produced new ones with the name only on them. And also look at Steinways. You may get lucky and get the name without an excessive price.

One of the first opinions reads like one would do shims as a cosmetic repair of "dead" soundboards and they still stay functionally dead, and uses this type of argumentation that shim repair seems to be second class or second choice. ....

I would (as an opinion) oppose to this.

There is a big difference in soundboard repairs between the U.S: and Europe. Profound european piano technicians always try to examine if a good repair done by shimming might be a better solution compared with the replacement of the whole soundboard.

I own a super old Steinway concert grand from 1877 which has yet it's original sounding wood which is no longer available to buy as new wood - the appalachian white spruce. This material is other than siberian Sitka spruce... experienced piano techs and piano likers will hear the difference. Some like the old stuff (me) and some like the newer stuff. ... So if there is ANY chance to get back the old functionality there is no other way than to repair the old wood. ... but to be done carefully.

My soundboard has ten shims. And they are placed well, and the curvature of the board is of the finest class.

I once learned from an extremely experienced technician who had learned at the Bösendorfer factory in Vienna that a careful repair of soundboards is never done by shimming alone... A good repair has to include a step after the shimming which is called "Aufkeilen", i.e. to give the repaired soundboard back it's old curvature, maybe three dimensional. I once learned that the curvature of the Steinway soundboards were an "outcut" of a globe o 16 meter i.e. 50 ft. diameter. ...

To replace this you have to relax the tensions, i.e. release the strings, then do the shimming job with the right shims and the proper glue and then the proper grinding and the proper lacquer job..., and then give it pressure again, first by adding pressure betrween rim and soundboard, then give the soundboard back the pressure by the strings tension. Then to check the proper added heights of dams, dam caps et cetera, and to adjust the heigths if necessary.

My piano has an additional feature, functionally intended quite similar to the "spider" of the Mason & Hamlin grands, a beveled gap in the bass end fo the soundboard where you can give the soundboard additional pressure by five screws, adding longitudinal force and-or adding transversal-cross force, a feature which seemed to become too complex with the first Centennial D grands starting 1875 to 1877, but which was in use since the "Rubinstein" tours grands, ca. 1871/72. Theo Steinweg dropped this ca. in 1878, there was a letter from him to bro William Steinway with warnings that there might come complaints by the Centennial customers about fallen-in soundboards... To drop this feature was one of the many tiny changes in technology during the "experimentation phase" which ended in 1884 when the actual D grand was ready-for-take-off. (Nearly no Centennial D grand is built same compared with the other..., there are many many many tiniy changes over the eight years done from December 1875 to spring 1884...

I cannot exclude that shimming is done partially as a "look-only" repair method, but this would be like car repair of a hit Rolls Royce by plastering with plastics, instead of a careful metal repair. Shimming can be done first-class - and should be done ever on that manner only. ... I only would accept a soundboard extraction if you can get same wood quality and get back original measures and curvatures.

Example? The disappointment of Glenn Gould after the renovation of his very special Steinway D grand was most probably caused by having not measured the old sound engine before extracting the soundboard et cetera and consequently not having reinstalled the old existing "failures"... He had got back a "normal" Steinway D grand of normal ex-works specifications... But the special soul of a formerly "technically maybe-bad" piano was lost. ... to his disappointment.

So it is a little bit more complex than only to tell "shimming is worse compared against a new soundboard"...
;-)

I personally would never never ever risk the old original wood which would be in no way ever retrievable, and then being urged to accept a new soundboard of Sitka spruce. I once played the Wagner grand, a Centennial D of same age.., and same number range..., and there is a chance that my piano and the Wagner piano were built as a twin pair ... I immediately recognizied same sound pattern. Looked down under the "stomach" .... and found, jippie yeahhh, the old stuff of the very bright old wood from the Appalachians.

Like it so much. Regardless if shimmed or not shimmed, but if shimmed, to have it done first-class, european approach. ... ;-)

My personal opinion.

I completely agree with BerndAB that the aged wood of the original soundboard is superior to most new soundboards but only if the crown has been maintained (rare) or restored. Unfortunately only very few restorers worldwide have the complex methodology, set up and patience to reintroduce the original degree of crown back into the original soundboard. In fact I know of three shops in Europe but only of one in the US.

In my opinion, in the right hands, a well selected ~mid-1870ies to pre-WWII piano has a better chance of becoming a high quality instrument all around than the great majority of new pianos currently offered, including most Steinways. (Correctly restored pre-1870ies instruments may also 'naturally' excel and even surpass modern instruments in certain types of literature e.g. playing Beethoven on an early Hammerklavier but then again those will be limited e.g. nobody would seriously play Prokofiev on it). Also the depreciation of a restored piano moves much more slowly than that of a new instrument. In fact it is possible to sell it without loss after some time of use, say 10 years. However like in a used (antique) car sale it needs to be very well looked after, convincingly presented (including detailing and a good performance) and best sold from private to private without pressure. In this scenario you will first need patience to wait for your piano to be restored and later more patience to maintain and perfectionate its full potential (e.g. though good voicing, tuning, regulation, room acoustics and serious humidity control through all seasons).

The effect on overall sound quality of post-WWI inventions such as you mention from Steinway or alternative ones from other manufacturers are relatively small compared to the general effect of the skill-set and knowledge of the restorer and the quality of the original core materials used. Buying an all original, unmolested piano, possibly even with a collectible value, such as a special, rare model or one associated with a famous musician at a low prize can greatly help your "investment". The violin collector field has somehow managed to lead the way. I am confident that well-documented special pianos will also be more and more collectible in coming years. Just think about what will happen with the armies of Asian pianists educated at our colleges or abroad. With increasing sophistication they are already becoming interested in authentic period instruments. There are even more, who were playing when young and later became rich business people still interested in pianos and piano music. Some US restorers (not necessarily the best) are already selling most of their instruments to Asia.

BerndAB,
Check this out; I will post something wordy later.

https://youtu.be/x2MGQ_hcJr8

Craig

BerndAB,
Your post was very refreshing to read; filled as it was with enthusiasm for old tonewood. I want to assure you that not every bellyman in the U.S. reaches for his Sawzall when the plate comes out. My business partners and I have made a dedicated study of recrowning soundboards. We feel that there is no greater loss to the potential of a piano than to lose its original tonewood.

You touched on a good number of point in this, admittedly, extremely complex subject; and I want to respond to a few without becoming an infomercial.

I think we agree that an old piano soundboard has a very special character to its tone, regardless of whatever deficiencies there may be due to the condition of the crown. It may have a bass fiddle/banjo break, a plinky treble, and no power, but there will still be a nice woody clarity to the sound. New tonewood just does not have this quality, IMHO; and it is precisely this that is lost when a board is replaced. Regardless of the objective improvements a new board may offer, this change of tonal character can be off-putting.

On the other hand, if you can give the old board the compression, crown, and downbearing that it was designed for, then these old boards can easily outperform the new.

What really cannot be done, however, is to restore compression, crown and downbearing, throughout the board, with shimming alone. Shims, little, normal, v-shaped shims, do not do much in and of themselves. The arc of a compression crowned board is sustained by the strain between the expanding panel and the restraining ribs. If the panel is no longer expanding, or even contracting, then the insertion of shims can have only a vey small, very localized effect. I am talking here about shimming alone.

A better response can be had if one is willing to loosen the ribs from the back of the board as far as is practicable. This allows the board to relieve some of its accumulated shrinkage. The cracks will actually widen, and this is good. If you warm the case, then the cracks will widen even further. Artful wedging of the ribs from behind will mimic crown, and the cracks will widen just a little bit more. Then, one by one, the ribs are released, glued up with hide glue, and re wedged into place. After the glue has dried, but before the wedging is removed, you finally shim the cracks. Once dried, all the wedging is removed. There should be some crown evident at this point. If the whole board has been kept dry enough, then that crown should grow over the next few days. It is not perfect crown, but what there is of it is true compression/stress interface crown and will give the piano a lot of life.

This technique is limited, however, in that there is no practical way to apply it in the treble. You cannot get true crown all the way to the top; so these pianos will have "just OK" trebles. This is about the limit to what can be done with shimming and board manipulation.

In order to get true compression crown throughout, the board must be removed from the case. We use steam to unglue the board from the rim, the ribs from the board, and, finally, the bridge from the board as well. Little damage is done during extraction and disassembly. Often notes written on the glue joints are legible afterward. Once apart, repairs are made where needed. The panel is glued back together, with the addition of extra strips of wood to make up for cross grain shrinkage. This gives us a spruce panel and a set of ribs, and we treat them just like any bellymen would, making a compression crowned board. This allows for dished cauls and positive pressing of the small treble ribs into them. This is the only way to get treble crown, and so to get treble response.

It sounds like a lot of work, and it is. Especially compared with the Sawzall and premade board method. The last shop we visited told me that he was installing his third board that week. This takes a little more time, but it is the only way to have that crisp old wood, and have the compression, crown, and downbearing required for good piano tone; the mechanical minimums.

I have seen four Centennials, and I can point to design differences between three of them. The fourth was in enough darkness to hinder examination. I think that the best way to look at the Centennial is as a prototyping platform. This may make questions of detail tricky, but the group, as a whole, are powerhouse pianos that come from a period when earlier scaling and tonal paradigms were still part of the educated ear. They still have a hint of a reedy bass and a more open buzzy tenor. They just sound interesting.

Can I ask what kind of bass strings you have in your Centennial?

Off Topic, but were you by any chance the other bidder on the 1867 Chickering Scale77?

Be well,
Craig

Do the vintage pianos with original soundboards sound the same today as they did when they were new?

Miguel,
This is a good question I have also been thinking about. It is fundamentally unknowable as you would need to travel into the past. However the answer from several string payers and luthiers, I have asked, who have more than 300 years of maturation in their instrument history (and fundamentally a similar construction) the answer is a clear no. In their view the aging process of tonewood (also spruce like the piano soundboard) is clearly beneficial for the sound quality.

I understand that pre aging the wood prior to manufacture is key but what about after piano is already made? So the new pianos from 1920 didn't reach their full potential until 75 years later?

Actually the major makers age their wood for years before they use it. There's a video from Boesendorfer that includes that, but I don't remember the number of years.

Miguel,
Spruce ages over much longer periods, e.g. by loosing hemi-celluloses and other substances. As a consequence its hygroscopic force, its elasticity and its weight is reduced. All this contributes to a better response to vibrations and increased stability against humidity swings.

Nobody will know, provided we talk about pianos from which no sounding records can exist because of their age. It is only an assumption if we listen to one ot the phantastic Pleyel grands of the Chopin era in the 1840ies that the strings are of the original provenance (i.e. wrought iron), that the hammers are still in a usable shape (i.e. would need that the once-new piano was nearly never played...) et cetera.

But why insist on any theoretical "historical " value? Do we have the ears of Chopin? No, we don't have. Do we have the brain of Chopin? No, we don't have. So our impression of Chopin's music in our days, played on a historically quite correct grand might be same impression as we were also invited to take part at the Family-Pleyel-Salons and after-dinner concerts. ...

We can evaluate the music and the sound-as-it-is.
Is it beautiful for our ears?

To another question, value and prominent pre owners...

I sometimes tell that I paid eight times the price of the new instrument (which was for 1.800 USD when being new) and that I paid the eighst part of the actual concert grand. Might help...

.... and the pre-ownership. Mine was once owned by a Mr Stubbs, head of the St Aidan's Theological College for the Anglican Church of England, Birkenhead, opposite of Liverpool, to educate young priests. The Right Reverend Charles William Stubbs then was Dean of Ely and later fourth bishop of Truro, Cornwall, and finished the one-and-only new cathedral building in England after 1220 until today.

Then Lady Helen Vincent d'Abernon was owner of my grand in the years 1910-1920....

And with her husband Sir Edgar, formerly the head of the Sultan's State Bank in Istanbul, then being the secretary to Lord Arthur Balfour, Britain's Prime Minister in those years, we can assume that the grand was a kind-of ear-witness ... to the ministers when they talked about their politics with the eastern-european jews who had big trouble in Russia and Poland ... which became then a very well known document - the Balfour Declaration. An early document that the british gouvernment would support efforts to establish a new state on historical place for the jews coming mainly from eastern Europe. To give them land on the shores of the Mediterranean..., derived from a cut imperion of the former turkish emperor...?....who lost Arabia, lost Egypt, lost Tunisia, lost Greece, ... after WW 1?

The founding of Israel was based on the dissection of the former Osmanian Imperium. My grand was "part" of this.

So my piano has a double connection with the ex Osmanian Sultanate and Khalifate...
Maybe a triple one, as I imagine that there must... be a reason that an extremely wealthy couple of the british high aristocracy establisted a household in London, and they bought no flame new piano but went on search for a used one... Had they got a hint? That an old piano might eventually be better than a new one? I know an expert in these questions... the late Sultan Abdul Hamid II himself, a profound amateur piano player and known as the most-probably best private customer of the Steinway company of those years. As the Sultan had bought in the minimum eight !!! concert grands for himself, for his brother who was a piano player also, and several of his (many...) wives. ... He bought in the years 1876 to 1890. So he knew the "old stuff" (Centennial D built 1875-1884) and the new stuff (actual D since 1884).

Did he instruct Lady Helen? Did he show her the differences, to enable her to buy "the right stuff" - dependent on preferences?

Does this anything have to do with value? I dont think so. ...

...But let this story be heard in the second-biggest jewish city in the World - New York City, in circles of some rich jewish people. We dont know. For me it does not matter, because I cannot imagine to sell the piano. Maybe this might matter for my son, in some 20...?... years...?...

What defins the value of an old piano? Is the Horowitz "Beauty" with it's special weighing much more, compared with another grand from 1938? Only because Vladimir Horowitz had set his fingers on the ivories? So know that the mechanism was changed, and that the keys might be eventually no longer the "Horowitz-pressed" keys? Also the weighing is other... very light, yes, but not the "Horowitz concert version". I know it, I played the piano.

Value? Depends.

Every musical instrument needs periodic reconditioning. Some need reconditioning yearly and,amazingly, pianos typically remain very playable for 50-60 years.