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And I thought $150k $200k pianos are expensive.... I've seen a Steinway at the store for a million bucks? Does it play piano?

why 1M?

It might just be arbitrary for publicity or other purposes. Art is priceless. But the real number is what the market is willing to pay for it.

I might want to list my old piano on EBay for 1M too. Who knows... I might get lucky... some big fishes might bite

Some prestige piano manufacturers pair with designers to make limited edition pianos


Steinway vault
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EwVZP2xTQuY

Why are some pianos $1 million?

Because some people will pay $1 million for a piano.

Such pianos are usually valued at the price of the plain ebony version of that piano model plus the value of the additional case ornamentation.

And if you want full gold plating on the case, I'm sure S&S will be able to accomodate that. I think that's wonderful, even more so since I neither have to pay for it nor look at it

I can't remember who's "Law" it is but it goes something like this:

Nail two things together that have never been nailed together before, and some schmuck will buy it.

There are billionaires in the world that can drop a million on a piano or multi millions on a collector car or piece of art. I guess it gives them something to talk about at social gatherings. I would be far more impressed if the billionaire dropped a million into a music program for kids. But that’s just me.

+1

Rick

By the way, consider some of the remaining baroque era instruments that we now treasure as beautiful period instruments. They are so ornate, so intricately decorated, they probably don´t represent the typical instrument of the era and I'm sure they clearly cost much more...

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/instruments/beautiful-musical-instruments-baroque/

Not all of the 1M instruments will probably be regarded as highly as some of those but some of the special edition Bösendorfer are really beautiful.

I always wonder if the million dollar pianos work as well as the regular high end pianos. Is the same care taken with a piano that would go to a concert hall for professional pianists to play, versus an art piece in someone's home that never gets played?

Aren’t you making an unfounded assumption the art piano would never get played? I can’t imagine any prestige manufacturer would make such an assumption and take shortcuts. Maintaining a reputation is very important in maintaining sales and price.

The nicest Bösendorfer 225 I've ever played was this one:
https://www.boesendorfer.com/en/pianos/collectors-item/grand-bohemian

Even though the art case (nor the price) would really fit with my home...

Back in 1985, when we were visiting the Boesendorfer showroom in Vienna and their factory in Wiener Neustadt to pick out our 225, they had some pictures of their art models - I remember a Johann Strauss model, IIRC. All the art models were many times as expensive as their regular models of the same size. I asked one of the staff, who buys these pianos? He told me they recently sold a 290 (their 97 key 9 and 1/2 foot long largest model) with a very fancy art case to a gentleman who was putting it in the music room on board his yacht.

you will feel that $100k are cheap piano and it gives you a more reason buy them

Wow. Now that would be a great venue for a house(boat) concert.