Bummer to not see it again. It would have been cool to see if that old of an instrument could handle it! How did it play? I can't beleive the hammers, etc could have stood that long of a test of time! Very cool if it really played and sounded half-way decent! I tuned a 1878 Bluthner grand once.... It actually held a tune at about A-430 but not too steady....All action and strings were apparantly original, according to the owner..( I was a little leary of that as she wasn't too complete in the head...if you know what I mean!!!) It may have been rebuilt (very nicely) a hundred years ago....really old parts :) Not too bad. Had the rectangle tuning pins. I prayed and prayed while working on it that nothing would break!!! Wouldn't the makers of that instrument be amazed that it still had the capability of making music?? I always marvel at really old pianos that actually remain in some sort of decency of a musical instrument. I tuned a 1901 upright a few years ago that hadn't been tuned in 20 years and it was pretty close to good at A435. I didn't try to bring it up!! :>) That's what it wanted to be at!! You have to let the piano "speak to you" ...especially when really really old.. Dont mess with what it's used to! Best, Paul "Farrell" <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com> Sent by: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org 04/02/2009 03:26 PM Please respond to pianotech at ptg.org To <toddpianoworks at att.net>, <pianotech at ptg.org> cc Subject Re: [pianotech] Civil war era piano Sounds like fun. Hey, go see it - ya never know..... FWIW, I tuned a Civil War Era upright piano one time. As a matter of fact, it was well established that the home had been empty since the Civil War - so the piano had not been tuned in about 130 years! It was a little more than five semi-tones flat. I brought it up to two semi-tones flat - and was going to try for the rest of the way on a subsequent appointment, but never heard from them again.... Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: Matthew Todd To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:52 AM Subject: [pianotech] Civil war era piano I just got an e-mail from someone wanting piano work done on their 1865 Emerson upright. She states the piano needs some work, and also says she wants to keep all the original parts. According to Reblitz, this piano is classified as an antique. My first call would be to set up an appointment to actually look at the PSO....err, I mean piano. TODD PIANO WORKS Matthew Todd, Piano Technician (979) 248-9578 http://www.toddpianoworks.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090402/9ff946f9/attachment.html>
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