damage evaluation

J Patrick Draine draine@attbi.com
Fri, 25 Oct 2002 15:18:06 -0400


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Dear List,
A new customer called me to appraise and tune their Kawai KG-2E (5' 
10", right? 1987). The reason for the appraisal? They recently moved, 
and while their piano was being craned out an apartment window it 
slipped, swinging about 4 feet before slamming into the brick exterior 
of the building.
Fortunately they had paid the movers for a policy to insure against 
damages. Unfortunately the  movers/insurance company went with the 
lower of two bids on the repair work.
While the workmanship is acceptable in a salvage scenario, it's the 
movers/insurance company's obligation to compensate for the loss in 
value between what it had been, and what is now. Or at least that's the 
customer's, and his lawyer's, viewpoint!

The impact had moved the right cheek out about 3/8" (they appear to 
have fixed that OK), mangled the corner pretty well, caused some stress 
fractures on the inside of the cheek, damage to the keyslip, etc. There 
was a pretty big ding below the keyslip (forgetting my case 
terminology) around middle C. Below is a shot of the which shows  how 
the "refinisher"/touchup guy colored the keyslip with a heavy red tone 
to disguise his work, and the poor match of finish on the front of the 
cheek. I'm not a whiz at closeups with my digital camera so I don't 
have better shots.
Any thoughts on how much a 15 year old "very very good" condition Kawai 
KG-2E (gloss walnut) is worth, and  how much it's worth when there's 
several areas like this that  shout "I've been repaired by a "so-so" 
(not expert) touchup guy."
(OK this what I *think* but tell me if I'm off base -- similar size new 
Kawai lists for $25K, heavily discounted to $18. If it hadn't been 
damaged -- $10 to $11K. "Touchup guy" was paid ~ $1800 ((losing bid was 
$3500)). So is it appropriate to say that the piano's been devalued by 
$1500? Or what figure seems correct to you?).
Thanks,
Patrick



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