Gray Market Blues

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi Gang,
About a week ago, I made an appointment to look at a piano in someone's home
to assess it for a potential buyer. The story was that the guy wasn't a
dealer, but just an individual selling his vertical so he could get a grand.
The piano was in a farm house out in the country. He wasn't there when we
arrived, and his wife let us in.

I found a gray market Yamaha U3 with the worst soundboard I've ever seen in
one of these. There were more, and deeper, compression ridges in the panel
than I would have thought was even possible. It actually still had a tiny
bit of crown, and didn't sound bad at all, considering how the soundboard
looked. The action was like new, like the piano had just sat in the rain
forest exhibit of the Botanical Gardens facility for twenty years without
being played. The case was perfect.

I showed the customer what I had found on the soundboard, and pointed out
that the room humidity wouldn't always be over 70%RH, in their own living
room, and I would expect to see the cracks open up big time come winter. The
seller wanted something like $7400 for it. I pointed out that, at a better
asking price, and if the soundboard hadn't been so badly damaged, it would
have probably gotten him through just fine until the grand they really
wanted came up in the budget. As it was, I recommended against it. The
customer agreed. 

I got the call from the seller later that evening, ranting and foaming about
how I had cost him a sale, didn't know a good piano when I saw it, and was
therefor utterly incompetent. He went on to say that a local "premier" tech
had purchased three of them from him and had no problems whatsoever. He then
told me how he had sold a lot of these and they were all just fine, followed
by more personal abuse and other general chit chat. He didn't seem to have a
good explanation as to how an "individual who wasn't a dealer" happened to
be selling so many gray market Yamahas over so many years, but the personal
abuse got a lot more colorful after that.

Immediately after hanging up from the "un-dealer" call, the phone rang
again. "Must have forgot to unload something", I thought, but it was the
prospective customer calling. Un-dealer had just talked to him before
calling me, saying what an evil, unqualified, SOB I was, and cutting the
price of the piano by $4000! Un-dealer had even told him all about those
other sales, and how all those pianos were just fine... every single one!
This after the story about how this was a one time sale by an individual,
and that he wasn't a dealer! The customer was really impressed by the
display, saying how he was satisfied as to how legitimate a dealer the guy
was and thanking me for the help. He wanted to know if he should buy it at
the reduced price. I said my assessment was based on what I thought was the
high probability of soundboard problems at winter humidity levels, not on
the price, so if risking a smaller investment made the difference... do it.
He's still shopping.  

This all doesn't really mean anything, I guess, I just wanted to gripe about
it to someone. There's probably a quite reasonable and safe market niche for
the gray market stuff, if it isn't already pre-trashed, but flim-flam
dealers and hobbyists who will never be interested in the difference between
flowers and feces, and represent everything as flowers, leave a nasty taste.
It's tough enough when everyone involved is trying their best to do right,
without this kind of crap.

End Rant,
 Ron