A.B.Chase?

[Susan Kline]

At 01:17 PM 9/3/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>thanks guys,
>this is encouraging news, as I'm not all that familiar with the 'good old'
>names in American pianos. As for price; the 'come and get it' kind of for
>'absolutely no money' type of price. :>) A nice gift from a fellow
>technician who retired from the trade last year.
>
>Mark

I tune one (and possibly two!) AB Chases. The one with AB Chase on the 
fallboard,
a roughly 6' grand, is a very fine and interesting (if worn) instrument. A 
jazz player
who met it for the first time says that from the sound and response he 
expected
to see "Steinway" on the fallboard, and was surprised to see "AB Chase". In 
fact,
I've heard AB Chase called the Poor Man's Steinway, and I heard a rumor that
Steinway once sued AB Chase because it was too exact a copy. Does anyone
know if this is true?

The other _possible_ AB Chase -- I work on a quite impressive 1901 8'10" 
Knabe,
for the Community Concerts. It has been a lot of fun, and we've had some great
evenings from it. Well, as 2001 rolled around, we actually held a party for
it, on the first concert of the year. Luckily the artists were good sports.

I was chatting with Paul Monachino at a convention, and mentioned our good old
Knabe concert grand, and he said, "Oh, yes, AB Chase." (?????? AB CHASE ????)
He told me that for awhile 9' Knabes were manufactured by AB Chase! He says
he could tell from the old Aeolian records if our particular one was really
an AB Chase, but we haven't managed to check it out yet.

If you'd like a few jpegs of this fun instrument, email me. It
has a Langer action, by the way. Have you checked out the action
of your new purchase yet? Does it have those interesting
(expensive-looking) curved rep levers? I think that you'll
be VERY HAPPY with your AB Chase rebuild, Mark. Give it the best!

Susan