Mystery Steinway action

[Phillip Ford]

Bob Davis wrote:
>Didn't get any bites on the pictures - I have seen earlier Steinway 
>actions that looked more modern than this one (1873, 7' grand). In fact, 
>we have an 1864 that looks pretty standard Erard-type. We work on a lot of 
>Steinways, but haven't run into this one. Factory had no notes in the 
>records. I thought someone out there might know what's the deal. Anybody?
>

Bob,

I've never seen one of these actions in the flesh, but there is a Steinway 
patent for this action (at least I think it's the same action as best I can 
tell from the photo).  It's patent 115782 from 1871.  There are several old 
Steinway patents for various grand actions of which I have never seen 
actual examples.  Some of the earlier patents are for actions that look 
more like the standard Erard type than this one does.  They were apparently 
experimenting a lot back then.


For images and the text go to:

http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/srchnum.htm

and type in 115782.

Regards,

Phil Ford 

PS  I will also send a JPEG of one of the patent drawings to the archive in a separate post.