Brand mystery

[Jon Page]

At 09:31 PM 6/11/2002 -0600, you wrote:
>I recently came into possession of a small grand which I intend to 
>rebuild.  There is no brand name on the fall board or on the plate, and no 
>serial number on the plate.  Any suggestions how to go about discovering 
>the brand?  Any distinguishing marks to identify?
>
>The piano looks to be in the neighborhood of 100 years old.  It has a 
>Wessel, Nickle, Gross action.  So it may have been a fairly good 
>instrument at one time.
>
>Arlie Rauch
>Glendive, MT

The way the plate is configured would be one way to deduce its lineage.
This would be called a 'stencil piano', meaning that it was made by a
production facility and any name could have gone on it as long as you
had the decal to place on the fallboard.

I would venture out on a limb and suggest the possibility of it being of the
H. C. Bey or Winter genre.  I think that even the second or third lines of
Baldwin didn't have their name cast into the plate; Howard, Monarch, Sargeant.

At least it has a WNG action, that's a start.
Regards,

Jon Page,   piano technician
Harwich Port, Cape Cod, Mass.
mailto:jonpage@attbi.com
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