Lovely birdcage - what to do?

[Geoff Sykes]

The techs I refer to shall remain anonymous for my protection. And they are
definitely NOT "tooner's." Just techs with a different opinion and different
experiences than you. And that's OK. I've learned from them and now I've
learned from you. Whats wonderful about this is that now I get to take
several different viewpoints and make an "educated" opinion of what to do
next. Thanks to all.

The customer definitely does not want to sell her piano. I was just curious.
She just wants to be able to play it again. I'm glad that I now have lots of
encouraging information to share with her about how to proceed with making
this wonderful piano whole again.

-- Geoff Sykes
-- Assoc. Los Angeles



-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Farrell
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 4:48 AM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re: Lovely birdcage - what to do?


Who the heck are these "techs" (or rather, "tooners") that suggest to leave 
the pitch where it is. I run across so many pianos that are a semi tone flat

and the owner is shocked when I suggest that we raise to standard pitch 
because all the other tooners said it could not be done.

Pitch raise the darn thing to A440 and be done with it. You might want to 
yank a few treble and bass strings up there first just to be sure, but I 
pitch raise 100 year old uprights to standard pitch all the time. Haven't 
had one explode on me yet. If this were one of those scantily built 
150-year-old English minimum-plate birdcages, I think there might be some 
justification for concern (I'd likely warn the customer that the piano might

fold up in half), but I'd still be willing to try it if the owner wanted to 
try to get it up to standard pitch. However, this is a monster heavily built

German piano from the 20th Century. IMHO if they want it at A440 (and that 
would be my recommendation to the owner), put it there for them.

And everything looks original to me also. REAL CLEAN - you bet, but all 
original. Very pretty piano.

What's it worth? Its value is the case and the amazing fact that there 
really is a piano within. Someone will be willing to pay something for that.

Hard to say for sure what one could get for it - because the buyer will be 
that person that takes one look at it and falls in love with it - but I 
would guess that the owner could get somewhere between $1K and $2K - maybe 
more if the right person were to see it.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message ----- 
> You think this piano could be brought up to 440, perhaps in stages,
> without
> any problems? I was so afraid to do a pitch raise on this thing because of
> what other local techs have advised that I never even thought that perhaps
> the added tension would improve the pin tightness. Worth a try.>
> -- Geoff Sykes
> -- Assoc. Los Angeles 


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