Web site

[Bill Ballard]

At 4:53 PM -0800 12/3/02, Donald Mannino wrote:
>Mike,
>Online "certified" appraisals for $25?  Sounds like another way for 
>someone to make money off the unsuspecting over the internet.

Don, did you click the appraisal button to see the data sheet 
submitted for an appraisal. Very general questions, no outline of the 
specific areas which we would look at for in our own appraisal work. 
That's not to say that lots of specific information couldn't be 
dumped into the "vanilla" fields.

But it really looks like a questionaire designed for "civilian" piano 
owners, and designed not to confuse or intimidate them. If you pursue 
the matter of the appraisers' qualifications 
(http://www.bluebookofpianos.com/us.htm), what is listed is an 
educational background of the most general sort. If there is a team 
of appraisers to which the data in forwarded, there's not a hint that 
any of them know the first thing about pianos.

>Antique, nostalgic and family heirloom values are among
>the variable factors when appraising anything of value.
>As in the other "Blue Book" guides for everything from
>Automobiles to stamps, coins, electronics, guitars and
>other items that may be considered as "collectable".  In
>addition to values given by this appraisal it would be wise
>to contact antique dealers when appraisal indicates a
>piano was made from the turn of the century to around
>1920 for an estimate of that added value.

Definitely a used furniture and antique dealer's appraisal, instead 
of one based on the piano's current musical value and adjusted by any 
unavoidable repair/replacement work.

Sounds like a boot strap operation to me. Start by selling 
appraisals, and then as your database grows, you can use it as the 
reference. But I thought that the idea of a Blue Book was that it was 
compiled from actual recorded sales.

At 10:30 PM -0500 12/3/02, Clyde Hollinger wrote:
>I've been asked to write a review of the book for the Journal.  I 
>didn't get to it yet.

Clyde, do you actually have the $69 book?

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"I'll play it and tell you what it is later...."
     ...........Miles Davis
+++++++++++++++++++++