[pianotech] NY Times article on pianos

[Terry Farrell]

Boy oh boy Joe. I at least hope your foot was clean before you went and stuck it in your mouth!  ;-)

You talk of "REAL rebuilding" and say that the piano you post about "got it all". Okay, great! So it got refinished, keys & keybed rebuilt, all new action, new redesigned belly, etc., etc. Wow, that's great & nifty!!! And let's see, that would easily add up to.... oh, let's even be very conservative - maybe $20K to $25K - unless of course one is running a piano non-profit missionary. Okay, so far, so good! 

Now, I'm not really so up on the cost of new upright Pleyel's. Am I safe to think that they might be somewhere in the range of a new high-end Yamaha or Steinway? So maybe $15K to $20K? X3 would be $45K to $60K - but you only charged $20K to $25. If you had done it for 1/3 the cost of a new Pleyel, you would have had to have only charged maybe $7K or so.

That's goofy man. I'd get that for the action & keys alone. So like you do belly work for free? This really does not add up at all Joe. Please explain. Or was this only written for our entertainment?

I think I gotcha here fella!!!!!

Terry Farrell


On Jul 31, 2012, at 12:01 AM, Joseph Garrett wrote:

> Wim,
> That is YOUR opinion not MINE!
> I've just completed an 1860 ish German Upright. Straight Strung. It is
> Circasian Walnut, with beautiful carvings and candleabras. It got it all,
> EXCEPT to be refinished.  (The customer likes it with all it's "character
> marks".<G>) The cost? I won't say.. However, that little cottage piano is
> absolutely GEORGOUS! Tonally, Aesthetically and with a nice light touch,
> (typical of those of that period). I'd put it up against anything out there
> of comparable size and of twice what I did the total rebuild for. This
> little piano would knock the doors off of the BEST Pleyel! AND, at about
> 1/3 the cost of that Pleyel! That is the only piano that would come close
> to how this piano is. You tell me that "..in the "grand old day"...blah de
> blah crap! This IS the grand olde days.. You live in a totally weird place
> that is not suitable for any decent piano to reside and complain about the
> crap you have to work on??? You don't have a clue about REAL rebuilding and
> care and love that goes into it. All you care about is the BOTTOM LINE.
> Horse pucky!
> Joe