<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> One might consider a few other things before thinking a piano is "too old." Sometimes pianos which came early to our excellent West Coast climate can last decades longer than those which had to contend with huge temperature and humidity swings in other regions. One week in California I tuned two uprights which had just been brought from the high desert in Montana. (Just a coincidence.) Neither had been tuned for 30 years. Both when I found them, after a week or two in Stockton, were 1/4 tone sharp. Our humidity was moderate, but they had been DRY. I remember one in particular. There was a very thin patina of light brown very fine dust on it, and underneath that -- IT LOOKED NEW!!! And this was a big 1920's upright. At the time, that piano was 75 years old chronologically -- physically, it was a lot newer than that. Other factors could intervene: has it been played to death? Was it left in a garage? Was it abused in a public place? I remember the upright from a church hall, where I had to remove a very old Mexican lunch from the action. I haven't come across one of the small but good uprights with plastic parts for awhile, but if one comes at me, and if it has been out west for most of its life, I'll try to oil up my (minimal) salesmanship so I can make a profit, and see if it can get new parts. Susan Jon Page wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:511B8C0B.4010802@comcast.net" type="cite">It seems to me that the piano is too old for intervention. DNR. Replace the piano with a newer one, it will be less expensive too. </blockquote> </body> </html>