teacher evaluations

[Ron Nossaman]

> There is a guy who runs around this area of the country "rebuilding" pianos.
> A one time client of mine paid $3500 for a Chickering 7' which was neither
> playable nor tuneable when I was asked to tune the thing.  Fortunately I
> managed to convince them to talk to a good local rebuilder, and they coughed
> up the additional bucks to have it completely redone.   After all was said
> and done they had a concert level instrument for vastly less than concert
> cost.  But it was a bitter pill for them.  The guy who has ripped off a lot
> of people is named Lovett, and evidently his reputation spreads over more
> than just the state of Texas.  We've all likely had to pronounce "dead" a
> number of things people thought were still pianos.........
> les bartlett 

Back in the early 80s he used to come through Wichita a couple 
of times a year and buy up any junk pianos the local 
technicians had managed to get stuck with, or finally decided 
they'd never get around to, and haul them back to Texas. We 
got a kick out of watching him load those big old uprights by 
himself, and wondered how he could possibly do even 10% of the 
work these pianos needed and be able to sell them for what he 
had in them. We decided he must be doing only 5% and 
refinishing them. Looks like we might have been right. I don't 
know how far north he ranged, but there must be thousands of 
expired pianos in Texas that he single handedly rounded up and 
hauled back.

He did a cheap refinish job or two for one of the local techs 
as well.

Was the Chickering refinished? Was the job decent, or at least 
acceptable?
Ron N