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An odd item was included in today's Vancouver Sun newspaper:

The Richmond RCMP have searched an abandoned warehouse there, and found it contained a dozen pianos in apparently "perfect" condition although very dusty, from small uprights to grands. They have no idea who owns them.

Contact Richmond RCMP at 604-278-1212 if you are missing your piano(s)!

I'm pretty sure this is the unit.
https://www.ibid4storage.com/auction/15147655332379/#auction

I was told about it when it came up and I reported it to the RCMP since I know of a moving company that went out of business and had taken pianos form people and were charging them storage. Looking at the photos I noticed the skids and dollies and figured something was not quite right. The unit was abandoned and the storage company put it up for storage but after I reported it the auction was closed. I had many calls from people in the last 6 months asking if I knew where the moving company went as they were looking for their piano. I did manage to get one of them back before these guys totally disappeared. They went and picked it up and brought it to my shop.

Oh, my. Let's hope other owners may now be identified? The newspaper item I saw is not particularly large or noticeable, on page A6 of the Vancouver Sun today. I don't know if many in the public would see it.

The article said the RCMP received a tip, which is why they checked. It was probably yours.

Social media will get these piano's hopefully to the rightful owners.

The warehouse must have belonged to 88 Fingers Louie.

I wonder if the space is climate controlled? Other wise it is not a good choice for long term storage. At least not for nice pianos that you do not want to rebuild.

That depends. Around here, pianos can do better if the space is not climate controlled.

Rich, yes climate control and never overlook the damage pests and bugs will do.

Very curious! We once had a case where a piano of ours disappeared in B.C. - something that rarely happens. We had it on our books and the dealer swore he never received it. We became aware of it when a technician called in for technical specifications referring to the serial number and tracked it to a secondary piano mover. After being contacted, he paid up.

Which he? The mover? The technician? The dealer?

Interesting story. Willful deceit, or bookkeeping error?

Same here -- the dealer I bought from uses nothing but natural convection ventilation, with a naturally ventilated attic above.


-- J.S.

I also knew of this moving company. Feeling not good about things, I pulled a very expensive grand out from them about a year ago. Glad I did: I had this piano temporarily in storage for someone who showed up only shortly after demanding his piano back.
Norbert

Shades of S. Covington and Schumann's missing Bosie ...

Wow that's pretty cool.

Our main mover had used another mover to deliver the piano to the dealer who happened to be gone from the store at the time. The secondary mover took it back and left at his warehouse. The dealers balance was always off for exactly the amount of the particular piano but we did not make much of it because there was a constant flow of units - so we did not pursue the paper trail....

The secondary mover or someone at the facility sold the piano. I always like to assume the best and figure that it must have been an error. As I mentioned before when the technician called, things became clearer. Our main mover contacted that outfit and they promptly paid up.

A follow up to the thread above, after almost four years!

I have copied and include the article here:

B.C. woman finds piano on Craigslist years after it disappears but other owners still hoping Author: Susan Lazaruk Publishing date: May 15, 2022
At least two of the heartbroken owners have given up ever seeing their precious pianos that disappeared when they put them into storage
Cynthia Loveman’s beloved Yamaha grand piano mysteriously disappeared years ago after she put it in storage during a move, but she never gave up hope that she would be reunited with the family heirloom.
She scanned Craigslist ads every night for years and was stunned a couple of weeks ago to spot it on offer for $15,000.
“I couldn’t believe it was true,” she said. “It looked like it popped off the page. I was trembling.”
About a week later, she was able to sit at the piano and play Beethoven’s Für Elise. “I cried. I couldn’t play. Then I calmed down and it was just lovely. I played the same piece on my player’s piano and my husband said, ‘Whoa, it sounds great.’ ”
While Loveman is thrilled to be reunited with her piano, she is still seeking answers, as are others whose pianos ended up with the same now-dissolved moving and storage company but didn’t get them back. Frustrated with the lack of police action, some turned to a private investigator.
Denis Gagnon, a retired RCMP officer who runs BCSI Investigations, said he believes how the moving and storage company lost their pianos was more than just poor management. He said he has put in “hundreds” of mostly unpaid hours chasing down leads and he continues to ask police to investigate the possibility of fraud.
In 2018, Gagnon tipped off Richmond RCMP to a warehouse filled with upright and grand pianos. RCMP subsequently issued a public notice seeking to reunite the pianos with their owners. But only three of the 20 pianos were claimed.
Richmond RCMP spokesman Cpl. Dennis Hwang said police consider the case closed and now a matter for the civil courts, if owners choose to pursue it. “You are referring to a case from 2018,” said Hwang in an email. “Our investigation was concluded with no information at that time to suggest criminal wrongdoing.”
“They (RCMP) were not in the slightest bit interested in finding out what happened to my piano,” said Cheryl Mitchell of North Vancouver. “They did absolutely nothing. They never even called me back. “If the police don’t care, what are you going to do?” she said.
Mitchell still misses the piano. It was the first piece of furniture her parents bought when they married more than 50 years ago. It was a John Broadwood & Sons piano, made in England by a manufacturer founded in 1728 and she estimated it was worth about $8,000.
“We would hear my dad playing it every Sunday morning when we got up,” she said.
She put it into storage after moving it from a family home on the Sunshine Coast, for which she paid about $150 a month for five years. When she called the company to have it moved, she was “given the runaround” and it became clear she wasn’t going to get it back. “I just assumed it was sold overseas,” she said. “This was a family heirloom. Everybody’s horrified.”
Grant Hayter-Menzies considered the loss of an 1887 Mason and Hamlin upright that had belonged to his grandmother tragic. “It was a very special piece. I had learned on that piano,” he said.
Hayter-Menzies had stored it with the defunct storage company when he moved to New Westminster from Vancouver Island. When he sought to retrieve it two years later, he discovered the business had closed and the piano couldn’t be found.
Loveman experienced the same heartbreaking loss when she realized the precious grand piano her parents had scrimped and saved to buy for her in 1971 when she was 12 was gone. She had had the piano moved from New York in 2015, placing it in storage with a local piano dealership until she and her husband moved into a larger house.
The dealership had transferred it to a storage facility owned by a different company without a written contract and that company at first denied ever having it. That company then stored it with the defunct moving and storage company, she said. Loveman got two years of storage fees and a “pittance” of $4,000 for the piano from the dealership after she threatened to sue. She estimated to replace it would cost US$85,000.
She learned the Craigslist seller was the sister of a piano teacher who had died of cancer in 2020. She was told the teacher had purchased the piano from two men at a Richmond storage locker for $7,000 cash in 2016, which included delivery in the back of a pickup truck.
Hayter-Menzies and Mitchell have given up hope of ever getting their beloved pieces back or any damages from the courts because they wouldn’t know whom to sue.
Gagnon said he is motivated to discover who is responsible for the wrongful resale of Loveman’s piano and possibly others because “I want to get to the bottom of this.” He said he has traced the former owner of the moving and storage company to a new piano moving company.
The last known owner of the moving and storage company, which no longer has a working website or phone number, couldn’t be reached for comment. His son answered his phone and said the company was owned by someone else. When he discovered he was talking to a reporter, he hung up. On a second call, he said his father wasn’t interested in making a comment.

OMG that's the worst nightmare of everyone who's ever moved a piano (or anything else precious!)