In a message dated 96-09-12 21:51:12 EDT, you write: << After getting blank stares from different folk as I gushed about this great Wurlitzer grand I finally talked to Paul Monachino and another person (whose name I forget) who knew what I was talking about. >From these two I got the following two stories. I don't remember who is responsible for which one. >> Clark - I have a third story about the 7' Wurlitzer grands, as told by Steve Jellen over 20 years ago. According to Steve, the head engineer at Wurlitzer attended a trade show in the early thirties, and wound up in the hotel bar with several other piano men at the end of the day. One of them, who worked for a "famous name" piano manufacturer, made a disparaging remark to the Wurlitzer man, claiming that all they knew how to do was build "cheap" pianos. This so bothered the man that upon his return to the factory, he asked permission to design a 7' grand - something that had no marketing potential in those depression days. Nevertheless, the management relented, afraid that with his pride wounded, they might lose their most important engineer. He spent a year working on the project, and turned out 3 prototype 7' grands in time for the following year's trade show, where they were displayed and caused a sensation. Apparently they were the equal of the best that the "famous names" could produce. Unfortunately, they cost the factory $7000 to build and no others were built beyond these three. I had an opportunity to ask Cliff Anderson about this in the late 70's when he was still working for Wurlitzer (after 30+ years as an engineer there). He knew of these 7' Wurlitzers as well, and said that there were a lot more than 3 out there, probably a few dozen. They never went into factory production, but were produced as one-offs on special order. Cliff also talked about a lot of other "experimental" pianos that were built in the engineering department, such as a console with a fiberglass soundboard - terrific tuning stability season to season since it was unaffected by atmospheric moisture. Of course marketing hated it - how could they sell a piano with a GREEN soundboard? Besides it cost twice as much as a plywood board. My guess is the metal pinblock was another such innovation. It may be a prototype, or a limited run instrument. We can only guess at the number of bona fide improvements piano engineers have developed, only to see the ideas scuttled by the marketing wonks. Ed Bordeleau
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