A.B.Chase?

[Mark Cramer]

Hi Susan,

nice to hear from you. I am anxiously waiting for my brother (Dale) to bring
the piano trailer to town so we can retrieve this instrument.  Pat's
comments, yours, and the others have me thinking I should run over and start
bringing it home "peice-by-peice."

I want to mention again, this piano is being 'given' to me (free) by a
former competitor who has recently changed careers. The big story (IMHO) is
this person's considerate generousity. I am most appreciative, and certainly
pleased you all consider this to be a fine make of piano. I value your
opinion(s).

BTW, Ted Sambell RPT, a gracious mentor to many of us CAUTs, who recently
retired from the Banff Centre for the Arts, is now living in London,
Ontario. A sample of Ted's most recent contribution to our craft can be
found under Tips, Tools & Techniques in the August PTJournal; "Modified
Trapwork."

Susan, do you have Ted's new e-address? I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you
posted it so we can wish him well.

thanks,
Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-caut@ptg.org [mailto:owner-caut@ptg.org]On Behalf Of Susan
Kline
Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 9:03 AM
To: caut@ptg.org
Subject: RE: A.B.Chase?


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