[CAUT] Steinway verdigris

Douglas Wood dew2 at u.washington.edu
Fri Jan 7 17:30:57 MST 2011


Yes, I'd expect that, at least mostly. I have actually seen Hamburg  
pianos with NY-built parts in them, but that was long enough ago that  
I don't remember the details. Most of the Hamburg pianos seem to have  
european-built parts. I think grand action parts have always been  
Renner-built, but I have confidence in this only for the last couple  
of decades. My understanding is that the Hamburg factory has used  
different sources for various parts (rim stock, plates, hammers,  
dampers, grand action parts--even whole actions from NY sometimes,  
soundboard spruce, etc.) in different eras. I see very few, so only  
have anecdotes. The NY factory has mostly used NY-built parts, but  
even there one finds notable exceptions: B's and D's from the late  
1980's and early 1990's have Renner-built parts, for example.

In any case, I would expect the verdigris problem only in a Hamburg  
that had action parts built in NY between about 1912 and 1962. These  
are likely unusual--has anyone out there met one? The severity of the  
problem would be related to the era, and the environment in which the  
piano lived.

Doug

On Jan 7, 2011, at 4:12 PM, Susan Kline wrote:

> On 1/7/2011 3:54 PM, Ed Sutton wrote:
>>
>> This fron Allen Wright in London, concerning whether he finds  
>> verdigris in European-made Steinways:
>>
>> "actually no, I don't, now that you mention it."
>
> Presumably, they never dipped the flanges in tallow?
>
> Susan

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