<HTML>In a message dated 10/31/01 8:00:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, grandrestorations@yahoo.com writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">...they built really crappy pianos for so many years and got such a reputation for building junk that during their last few years, when they were really trying to build a nice piano, it was too late, that the public wouldn't buy them anymore... That's the story I was given, but then again it was given to me by a piano salesman.</BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, the last few years Kimball shipped pianos they weren't even built by Kimball. They were built on contract by - talk about irony - Baldwin. Kimball sold all their piano building equipment along with the Conn and Krakauer brand names to a Chinese piano company named Artfield piano, and converted the piano factories in Indiana to other uses 2 or 3 years before they stopped selling pianos. And as for the salesman - there's an old joke in the business: What's the difference between a used car salesman and a piano salesman? The used car salesman *knows* when he's lying.   ;-) Larry Fletcher Atlanta Chapter</HTML>