[Files] John J Smith Piano??

[Michael Spalding]

  List,

  I have a 5'3 grand in the shop for rebuild. Purchased in 1930 by the
present owner's grandfather. Family legend has it that this piano was  
built
to order by a Mr. John J. Smith of either 6328 N. Clark St. Chicago
(receipts) or LaPorte Indiana (owner's recollectioni of fallboard  
decal).
Mr. Smith's lifetime output was supposedly only a dozen or so pianos.  
It is
not like any depression era small grand I've ever seen. Wondering if  
any of
you more experienced folks have ever seen a Smith, or perhaps some of  
these
features remind you of some other make of piano? It was refinished a  
couple
of decades ago, and if there were any identifying decals or names or
numbers anywhere on the cabinet or on the plate they are gone now.

  -22 note bass, 10 mono, 8 bi, and 4 tri.
  - 6 more wound trichords on the tenor bridge.
  - bridge is dog-legged at the struts for smooth progression of string
lengths across the breaks. Tenor end of long bridge is dog-legged, and
agraffes are offset, to shorten the wound trichords relative to the
adjacent plain wire notes.
  - pinblock has 2 notches, one in the traditional location at the
bass-tenor break, and another at the tenor-treble break. The pinblock is
cut away along both the front and back edges to clear steps cast into  
the
front and rear flanges of the plate.
  -WNG action.
  -M&H style sostenuto brackets screwed into the belly rail.
  -Plate rests directly on the soundboard, which has been relieved  
under the
plate bolt pads to set plate height.

  The owner and I would like to learn more about Mr. Smith and his
operation, so please let me know if any of this sounds familiar.

  thanks


Michael Spalding
spalding48 at earthlink.net

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