Grey market Yamahas

[D.L. Bullock]

Grey market my backside.  What the H--- is gray about it.  Pianos that were
built 30 years ago have always been called used or old, but now these
Japanese have coined a new term or have commandeered a term for a new use.
Grey market used to refer to new product sold in the wrong place.  It is
part of the Japanese tradition of PREDATORY CAPITALISM.  Just like the way
Yamaha purchased their only competition (Pianocorder) to put it out of
business when they came out with their new Disklavier player system.

The Asian screws you purchased recently are also a product of PREDATORY
CAPITALISM.  The Asian screw companies first commandeered the American screw
market this way.  At one time a few years ago all screws were made in the US
and if you put it in place you knew it would not break off on the last turn.
Asian producers began making and selling their screws to the same standards
and selling them for less than the American producers could make them for.
Soon the Americans all shut down their foundries and purchased screws from
Asian producers.  Once all the Americans had shut down their foundries, the
Asian quality went into the toilet and the price went up.  You can now put
in a new screw and by the time you get it all the way tight you must remove
it and put in a new one because the head of the first one is all chewed up
from one use...that is, if it did not break off just as it got all the way
down.  You wondered why that happens, right?

Even John Schadler (APSCO) who was at one time a prominent screw
manufacturer no longer makes any screws but sells Asian instead.

While most manufacturers stand behind their classic instruments, Yamaha sees
their own fine pianos as a threat to their very life.  If they are not going
to buy up all the old pianos and crush them, then they should embrace them.
People who purchase one of the used Yamaha pianos (gray market)will get
years of use out of it.  They will be impressed with Yamaha quality and
later when they are wealthier and want a better piano, guess what brand they
will be looking for?  Yamaha, that's right.

This is just like the major St. Louis piano dealers.  They take old pianos
in on trade but do you think they fix them and sell them as starter pianos
like the rest of us do?  No, they stockpile them in the back and once a
month when the piano movers have nothing to move, they are given sledge
hammers and are told to haul them all to the dump and put huge holes in the
soundboards before leaving.  They can't risk someone pulling one out of the
dump and playing it.  If they can break the plate I think they get a bonus.
I have never considered old pianos anything but stepping stones to my
expensive pianos a few years down the road, but this new vicious breed of
dealer considers that old $100 upright a competition to their new Steinway
or Yamaha.  I have noticed that anyone contemplating a $100 piano is not
likely to purchase a $10,000 piano instead.  They either keep looking or
they do without.

Enough of my tirade, hide that soapbox so I can't find it again.  Sorry,
this is one of my pet peeves.  Those so-called gray market Yamahas are very
fine pianos.  Far finer than I would have expected them to be when they were
being sold around me thirty years ago.  I have sold at least 100 of them,
but no longer because they now cost so much more.  I can't get more money
for them now and it took some work to get them to my sellable standards.

D.L. Bullock
www.thepianoworld.com
St. Louis