<HTML>In a message dated 6/1/01 12:14:48 PM Central Daylight Time, dporritt@post.cis.smu.edu writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I have been in this work for just under 30 years.  I've heard about any question or comment possible by customers.  There's one though, that completely stumps me! If a piano needs a new sounding board I often here "...but it won't be a Steinway anymore."  I often come up with a lame analogy to a race driver.   He doesn't care what kind of fuel pump his car has as long as it's the fastest it can be.  Do you want your piano to be the best it can be, or do you want to keep this old sounding board.   Does anyone have a good, but not glib, answer for these people?  I just don't understand their thinking.   dave </BLOCKQUOTE> Several years ago a letter from a lawyer appeared in the Journal basically telling technicians that rebuilding a Steinway is an infringement on patent rights. The gist of the article tried to imply that only the Steinway Factory is allowed to remanufacture Steinway pianos. Several months later another lawyer wrote an article saying the first article is full of hog wash, and he quoted a Supreme Court decision to prove the case. At what point does a replacement of a part other than a Steinway part make the piano NOT a Steinway? Can we change a string, or a hammer, or remove a punching under a key, and still have a "real" Steinway? As someone pointed out, when was the last time a member of the Steinway family build a piano? And as someone else pointed out, are new Steinways built entirely in the Steinway factory, like they used to be? The case and the plate are probably the only components of a piano that should stay together. Those are the "guts" of the piano. Anything else can be changed. Even if the piano was taken back to the factory, some of the parts will not be manufactured by Steinway. So even those pianos should be considered non Steinway. Dave. there is no easy answer, but I would tell your customers what they want to hear. Tell them the parts are the best available for the instruments and that you'll do your best to make the piano sound and play like they want it to play and sound.  If they think it looks, plays and sounds like a Steinway, then that is what it is. Willem </HTML>