Shut my mouth

[pryan2]

I had two customers today with newly acquired old, used pianos acquired in
the last six months.  (One was a grand salvaged from a fire and painted
white and thrown back together and the other a 45 year old "Naga" Wurlitzer
spinet)  Both customers asked me what I thought of their piano.  When I
started to tell them diplomatically  that the hammers were as hard as rocks,
the strings were dead and rusty, the actions were loose and noisy, the
tuning pins were either frozen or loose, they both stopped me and exbounded
on the virtues of their pianos and how wonderful they would be for the kids
to learn on etc.  I took their cue, shut up, nodded my head, collected my
fee and left.

Question:  How honest should we be when asked to evaluate an old piano?  I
just feel that we are not doing them a service to agree with their misguided
logic.  On the other hand, they really don't want to know the bad parts and
I don't want to lose a customer.  Where is the middle road?

Phil Ryan
Miami Beach