Brand new 1953 Winter spinet

[Farrell]

No answers from me - I didn't even know what a piano was back then.

However, since you brought up Grand piano.......... I went to an appt. yesterday afternoon to tune a piano a young woman just bought so her daughter could take lessons. A 1960s Grand piano. Pinblock falling off frame, bass bridge dangling in the air - not connected to anything but the strings, missing dampers, broken flanges, loose tuning pins, on half of the keys the key buttons were shot - and on half of those the center rail pin hole at bottom of key was so enlarged, the key could wander out from under the wippen. That's just the highlights. This was THE WORST piano I have ever seen that someone expected tuning on. I think it beats out all the old uprights I have run into.

Unbelievable that anyone could have sold this thing.

I feel better now.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Tvak@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 8:39 PM
Subject: Brand new 1953 Winter spinet


> Having only been around for the last 5 years or so, I feel as if I have had 
> more than my share of spinets in all the various flavors, such as Winter, 
> Gulbransen, Whitney, Wurlitzer, etc.  You know the ones I'm talking about...
> 
> What did these pianos sound like when they were new?  Anybody around who 
> remembers their first Whitney back in 1953?  When it was brand new, out of 
> the show room and right into the living room?
> 
> Were they as terrible back then as they are now, or did they just degrade 
> horribly over time?  Did they have false beats in every note in the top 3 
> octaves?  A tenor break you could hear down the block?  Bass bichords that 
> can only approximate a unison?  Little or no sustain anywhere? 
> 
> Or were they acceptable pianos that just got worse (and worse) as time went 
> by?
> 
> In other words, is this what an Old Chang will be like?
> 
> Just wondering, after my lucky day consisted of a Whitney, a Kimball, and a 
> Grand,  
> 
> Tom Sivak
> 
> P.S.
> Disclaimer:  This post not intended as a launching board into a discussion of 
> "Great Winter Spinets I've Found".  Granted, there is variation within each 
> brand name.  Except for Grand.  They all stink.   ;-)
> 
> P.P.S.
> Actually, any day I have 3 tunings is a lucky day.