<HTML>In a message dated 8/1/01 11:47:37 PM Central Daylight Time, rrg@nevada.edu (Robert Goodale) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Thanks for the update Bill.  It sounds like there's gunna be a big surplus property bankruptcy sell at the Baldwin factory soon.  I could use a really nice bandsaw and a table saw.  A jointer too.  I wonder if they will take checks?</BLOCKQUOTE> So long Baldwin and thanks for all the fish. Not so fast, Rob.  You may well be right about their equipment being auctioned off.  I also very much appreciate the point of view from another List member who wrote  about whom this whole tragedy affects negatively.   It's not unlike the severe drop in price of oil in the 1980s in Louisiana.   High prices and abundant production brought lots of people to Southern Louisiana for good, high paying jobs. The oil market there lifted Louisiana out of 3rd World status and poverty.   But only a few years ago, I bought gas at a little Cajun butchershop/convenience store/gas station that sells the best *boudin* (a sausage made of pork, rice, onions and hot, peppery spices) in the whole region for 78 cents a gallon.  While that kind of price certainly benefited me, it was putting many people there out of work and out of business. If Baldwin ceases business, some people will get some goods they may not have otherwise been able to afford for a very low price.  Others will lose their jobs and maybe even their whole line of business.  I think the answer is for another manufacturer or even more than one to buy them out, sell off inventory and start from scratch. They can put a factory in a place where people need jobs, make it efficient in a new building, offer a fair and attractive opportunity to workers who otherwise would not have a skilled job and build some truly good and marketable pianos on a limited basis that the market has a demand for.  (Go visit the Walter piano factory to see an example of what has bucked a 30 year trend and will work today).  I sure hope the people running the company are thinking along those lines.  The name Baldwin itself is just too valuable of a recognizable trade icon to just let go down the drain. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin</HTML>