[CAUT] SAMA rebuilding (Juarez)

[Chris Solliday]

AND HERE is the real issue and the rub to boot. As a result of SAMAs pretty
good work and extremely reasonable price, dealers are buying up shells,
particularly Steinways, at higher and higher prices, as the competition
increases, and getting the factory floor version and doubling and tripling
their money. All of which makes it very difficult and more expensive for the
speculating technician/rebuilder to find and acquire shells, hence the
backlash. If there is any fleecing going on, it is at the dealers and
perhaps in the decision to not replace soundboards older than fifty years (I
know, some would say 60 and some would say 40...). As for SAMA and Guy they
are both quite reputable and the work I have seen is not bad so we shouldn't
really pick on them. There are also European and Asian versions of this
"cheap across the border" trick. I don't know if anything can be done to
reverse this trend. For now, we all have to get to the shell quicker and pay
more and raise our prices, or stop speculating. This is not Guy or SAMAs
fault, they are operating legally and ethically, just across the border. One
question I do have in all this is, Are they floating these pianos across the
Rio Grande wrapped in sealed plastic or do they use trucks, rail, planes or
what? Because the idea that more money could be saved by floating the pianos
across the river is very funny, or at least, alittle politically ironic
today. N'est pas?
 Don't forget to VOTE.
 Chris Solliday
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Sturm" <fssturm@unm.edu>
To: "College and University Technicians" <caut@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 9:10 PM
Subject: [CAUT] SAMA rebuilding (Juarez)


> I deleted the recent posts on this subject (Dale Erwin initiated I
> believe, and Guy Nichols), so I don't have the thread name right, but I'd
> like to offer a few comments. I have seen pianos rebuilt by SAMA, and I
can
> state with utter assurance that they bore no resemblance whatsoever to
what
> Dale described (with possible exception of the finish). I'm not going to
> say that SAMA is in the top 10% of piano rebuilders in the country for
> quality, but it is definitely in the top half. Workmanship is basically of
> "factory floor" quality - needs tweaking in the final "finish booth" or at
> the dealer, but definitely in the ball park.
> It should be understood that SAMA does a lot of refinishing, but
> relatively little action work. The "basic package" includes case refinish,
> soundboard shim and refinish, plate re-gild, new block and restring, all
> for under $4000. They also do case refinish alone at a very competitive
> price. Shipping via piano specialist mover is probably $500 or so round
> trip. So lots of dealers are taking advantage.
> I suspect that lots of shady dealers just send for the refinish, and do
> their own shoddy work on the rest. We all know there are a lot of awful
> characters out there, fleecing the public and running down our profession.
> SAMA is not one of them.
> Regards,
> Fred Sturm
> University of New Mexico
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