[pianotech] who pays?

[tnrwim at aol.com]

I've read a lot of comments on this. For the most part, I agree with what you, and Ron, and others, had said. But, where I think Steinway is coming from with "bashing" the private rebuilders, is not the dozen or so rebuilders around the country that are doing top notch work. (I won't mention them, because I would leave some out, and I don't know all of them), but the hundreds of "rebuilders" who do less than exemplary work. It's those rebuilders that Steinway is warning the public about. 

Someone mentioned that Renner was not listed as a parts maker to avoid. Obviously that's because Renner supplies parts to their instruments, and if they mentioned them as someone who does not make acceptable parts, it would certainly not look good for them. 

Another part of that promotional stuff I have trouble accepting is the value of their pianos after a certain number of years. I've done some research on this, and found that Steinway pianos don't depreciate, or appreciate, any more than any other brand of piano. The actual prices might be different, but it's the same percentage. Take a  Kimball console, that sold new in 1960 for about $350, is worth about three times as much now, if it's in good condition. A Steinway S that sold new in 1960 for $2000, is probably worth $6000 today. 

The idea that their instruments appreciate in value is very misleading. I had a customer ask me to appraise his 5 year old S, and was very surprised to find out that the value of that instrument was about 75% of what he paid for it. He was assured by the salesman that his $25,000 investment in the new S would be worth $30,000 in 5 years, and that's the only reason he bought it. Of course the customer was mad at me for giving him the bad news. 

Wim


-----Original Message-----
From: David Love <davidlovepianos at comcast.net>
To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Fri, Oct 19, 2012 11:18 am
Subject: Re: [pianotech] who pays?


It's a little out of context.  The question is the criticism of Steinway for
marketing themselves the best way they know how using a strategy that they
think will be most effective.  I personally think that their "Stein-was"
strategy is largely driven by the heavily vocal design change Steinway can
do no right group.  Steinway clearly has a market share in rebuilding their
pianos to protect--i.e., they make money there.  Their greatest (or you can
also argue weakest) asset is that the pianos that come out of their facility
will be faithful to the current Steinway designs.  I've seen several factory
rebuilds that were fine and some that weren't.  The same can be said of
independent rebuilders.  

We all pick and choose the kind of promotional angle we think will serve us
the best whether it's that we employ design changes seeking improvement or
that we remain faithful to the original concept.  That Steinway promotes
themselves as the best avenue to rebuild vintage Steinway pianos should come
as no surprise.  If they were Nossaman, Erwin or Love pianos, if we are not
being disingenuous, we would be making the same claim and probably by
somewhat bothered by people making design changes.     

David Love
www.davidlovepianos.com


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 11:58 AM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] who pays?

On 10/19/2012 1:03 PM, David Love wrote:
>  Would
> you want someone stretching strings over every rebuild/redesign that 
> you've done and drawing conclusions about the rest of your work based 
> on that one piano?

That was exactly the situation with all of us who had a piano at that
showcase. The difference is that most of the people looking at our pianos
had only ever seen that one example of our work, where a lot more of us have
seen more than one example of the Steinway basement rebuild.

Ron N


 
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