I bought a retired tuner's old steel tackle box at this month's PTG meeting / auction. It looked like a good size for my little angle grinder and was/is too ugly for much of anything else, so nobody else wanted it. Going through the box and cleaning out the junk today, I dumped out all the old oversized tuning pins and soundboard toggle clamps (glad to see them out of circulation). Seeing something still stuck to the bottom of the case, I dug in and pulled out an old manila envelope that looked like it might have been the first one ever made. Inside, I found a city library postcard saying that "scientific Piano Tuning" has been reserved for you and will be held for you until 9:00 pm, Feb. 24, 1948. There's another one for "Piano Tuning, Regulating, and Repairing" with the same postmark date. I guess he made the pickup, since he is, after all, a retired tuner. I have three pamphlets for "X-Hale piano formula moth exterminator" used to inform customers that "Piano Moths are a DANGER in your HOME!", and offers to have the tuner inspect the piano and take the necessary corrective action. Hand written on a printed form headed "Teachers Daily Plans", and dated Feb 2, 1934, is a NAPT price list. Among other things, tuning was listed at $7.50, and service labor at $3.00 per hour. Refinishing a grand was $125.00. The last thing here kind of goes with the discussion on the pricing of new tuning hammers. It's an invoice from Tuners Supply dated Mar 4, 1948 ( a little less than three months after I was born ) listing : 1 # 2 tuning hammer $6.00 1 doz rubber mutes # 70 .60 2 muting felt .50 1 gill T P T .75 1 qt X-Hale .90 with a 1% cash discount, and .56 postage, it came to $9.22. He must have either already had a fork, or was saving it for the next order. Not a bad price for a tuning kit huh? I also assume "TPT" was tuning pin tightener, since he went through a lot of the stuff in the next forty years. I always enjoyed these little glimpses into the past. Ron N
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