----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan" <tune4u@earthlink.net> To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 6:11 PM Subject: "Deal of the Century" X 2 <<. . . Cable spinet. 1966, no plastic action parts. Actually in good shape, hammers barely dented, felts soft, pretty clean. . . . . Almost 50 cents flat, on average. Regulation pretty good. No mechanical problems. . . . . So I ask: "What did you pay for the piano?" "Oh," she says, "We got a good deal. They wanted $1,500 for it but we talked them down to a thousand." I make Nooooo comment other than "Hmm." Alan R. Barnard Salem, MO>> That's not such a bad deal. For a piano with all its essential components intact, all notes working, and re-whateverable to make into a "decent" instrument, $1000 is pretty much the minimum a person's gotta pay these days, except for dealers & rebuilders that can afford to buy several at a time wholesale. Even then, $800 or so is about the lowest I see around here, for spinets and consoles. <<Pitch raise with TuneLab and fine tune with two passes ... Wild strings galore ... "Wahwahwahwaaaah" all over the piano. Top octave and a half are racous, shrill, whiny, yucko.>> That stuff can be fixed or at least much improved, probably, by seating bridge pins and/or strings, string leveling, mating hammers to strings, softening the hammers, checking for evenness of let-off, fine tuning and voicing. It won't be a "fine" instrument, but for $1K plus your labor, what do they expect? It'll be a lot better. --David Nereson, RPT, Denver
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