J&C Fischer Uprights

[Richard Moody]

Les,
	Thanks for the info. More  More.   Anybody ever come across a
Fischer  two stringer upright or others?  I'm pretty sure it was a
Fischer. Not sure of the vintage but perhaps 1890-1900.    I enjoyed
tuning it.  And the surprising thing was that it was LOUD.  Made me
ponder again why there are three strings.   But that's another thead.
 I take it that APC means American Piano Co (as in Am pi co), and AC
means Aeolian Corp. And the brass key pins, didn't the center rail
pins have a narrow oval top to ride in the bushing?

Richard The Ponderer

----------
> From: Les Smith <lessmith@buffnet.net>
> To: pianotech@byu.edu
> Subject: J&C Fischer Uprights
> Date: Monday, February 17, 1997 10:33 PM
>
>
> Greetings All!
>
> Just a brief note on the J&C Fischer upright thread. As Keith
point-
> ed out, generally, when you find an upright piano with a
lost-motion
> compensator and a working sostenuto mechanism, it bespeaks a fine-
> quality instrument. This is certainly the case with early, pre-APC
> and AC Fischers, which traced their roots to the earliest Fischers
> which were originally made in Naples, Italy, beginning at the end
of
> the eighteenth century. Around 1839, the two sons, John and Charles
> immigrated here to the states and and sought to continue the tradi-
> tion of building fine quality pianos. The next time you have the
op-
> portunity to do some action-work on one of those early, pre-APC
> Fischer uprights, if you remove a few of the keys. you're apt to
> find something very rarely encountered anymore: solid brass keypins
> at both the balance and front rails. Fischer continued using brass
> keypins longer than just about any other American manufacturer. The
> pre-APC Fischer instruments were very highly-regarded in their day.
> Unfortunately, those early Fischer uprights share a common failing
> with similar-vintage Chickering uprights in that as they aged they
> were prone to develop serious soundboard, bridge, and pinblock
prob-
> lems. For this reason, many of the older Fischer uprights
encounter-
> ed today, are not worth the cost of rebuilding. However, as Vince
> will tell you, each instrument has to be evaluated on its own indi-
> vidual merits. And, whatever their condition might be today, those
> brass keypins certainly added a touch of class.
>
> Les Smith (Still hanging on by his finger-nails!)
> lessmith@buffnet.net
>