It is truly amazing to see the tremendous effort that
was put into "improving" some classic uprights in the
1950's. Always with hideous results, and merely of
varying magnitude. It makes me question the very
sanity of people in that era!
But, hey, they were throwing Tiffany lamps in the
trash while buying pink Formica dinettes with silver
sparkles like crazy! ( Must have been all that
radiation from above-ground nuclear testing. )
Thump
--- Tom Driscoll <tomtuner@comcast.net> wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> I was called to evaluate a Steinway upright
> yesterday.
>
> To my horror this piano (1890) rosewood
> case had been
> "Restyled"---1950's style---You know, the usual
> chopped off upper front
> panel with mirror treatment on top.
>
> Action parts and brackets-rails-capo etc sprayed
> with gold paint .Crappy
> plastic keytops with overzealous sanding on the
> sides, leaving gaping
> spaces between the keys.
>
> All this was certainly bad enough, but
> here's the worst---
> The "tech" had drilled a series of quarter inch
> holes across the top of
> the plate above the tuning pins and broke off
> approximately the top inch
> of the plate. Only a few of the plate bolts remain
> on top with the only
> pin block screws seemingly holding this thing
> together. All this to
> lower the piano one inch! I'll bet it looked
> horrible at 50" and just
> great @ 49"
>
> Surprisingly the piano was @ pitch and
> fairly even and I've
> contracted to do a minimum of service with caveats
> galore concerning the
> plate issue.
>
> Put this one under the thought I've seen
> everything
> category.
>
> Tom---can't believe it--- Driscoll RPT
>
>
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