Greetings All! Just a brief note on the J&C Fischer upright thread. As Keith point- ed out, generally, when you find an upright piano with a lost-motion compensator and a working sostenuto mechanism, it bespeaks a fine- quality instrument. This is certainly the case with early, pre-APC and AC Fischers, which traced their roots to the earliest Fischers which were originally made in Naples, Italy, beginning at the end of the eighteenth century. Around 1839, the two sons, John and Charles immigrated here to the states and and sought to continue the tradi- tion of building fine quality pianos. The next time you have the op- portunity to do some action-work on one of those early, pre-APC Fischer uprights, if you remove a few of the keys. you're apt to find something very rarely encountered anymore: solid brass keypins at both the balance and front rails. Fischer continued using brass keypins longer than just about any other American manufacturer. The pre-APC Fischer instruments were very highly-regarded in their day. Unfortunately, those early Fischer uprights share a common failing with similar-vintage Chickering uprights in that as they aged they were prone to develop serious soundboard, bridge, and pinblock prob- lems. For this reason, many of the older Fischer uprights encounter- ed today, are not worth the cost of rebuilding. However, as Vince will tell you, each instrument has to be evaluated on its own indi- vidual merits. And, whatever their condition might be today, those brass keypins certainly added a touch of class. Les Smith (Still hanging on by his finger-nails!) lessmith@buffnet.net
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