Subj:Re:Subj: Different agraffes

[Tom Myler]

----------
> From: Wimblees@aol.com
> To: pianotech@byu.edu
> Subject: Re: Subj:Re:Subj: Different agraffes
> Date: Friday, January 31, 1997 1:47 PM
>
> In a message dated 97-01-31 13:38:09 EST, you write:
>
> >Synchronicity strikes again.   Just Last week I went to look at a piano
a
> >lady wants to give me.  I noticed agraffes through out, but what really
> >struck me were the agraffes on the bridge!!.  First time I have seen
this.
> >I was thinking about posting to the group, if there were any historical
> >interest in this piano.  The SB is cracked and split so bad it appears
> >beyond repair.  I could take photographs and video. I am 90% sure it is
> >Hallet & Davis.
> >
> >Richard Moody
>
>
>
> This is probably a Sohmer.  No significant historical value. There is no
way
> to get rid of them except replace the bridge.
>
> Willem Blees  RPT
> St. Louis

(I haven't been following this thread, so PMFJI and excuse me if I
misunderstood what you're talking about.)

I've seen a couple of the Sohmer grands with agraffed bridges (agraffes
instead of bridge pins), but I also regularly tune a *very* old Hallet &
Davis grand with the same setup. (And it sounds just as horrible.)   No
serial #, but the dealer who sold it to my client misled her to believe
that it had some special historical/antique value because he has a book of
old pianos that has a photograph of a similar or possibly identical Hallet
& Davis grand, dated as circa 1890. (She got her own copy of that book, and
showed me the photo.)

The dealer is (was?)  "an old family friend" of theirs, and yet they didn't
seem all that surprised when I told them that while the piano is mildly
interesting to a technician, it is essentially a beatup, worn out, crummy
old piano with little or no value as a musical instrument.

Anyway, it's definitely a H&D (cast into the plate) and not a Sohmer.

And I agree with Willem-  IF they wanted to restore this thing, it would
have to have new bridge caps.


Myler, Tom

"It's what you learn AFTER you know it all that counts"