Can feel a purchase coming on...

[JohnEB]

Can anyone here recommend piano dealers in or near the Telford, Shrewsbury or Stafford area? My sister lives in that area and I think she's moving towards buying a piano...

She has a pretty awful upright just now - she paid ?750 for it but I don't think it's worth that much. I don't know what make it is but it sounds very muffled, no brightness or sparkle at all, the action is very light and it's very difficult to get any kind of dynamic variation out of it. It's quite tall, I would guess 130cm at least, but you'd never know from the volume.

This weekend she visited me and saw and heard my little grand piano, and after asking all sorts of questions about it I get the impression she wants to dump her little upright and get something like my Wendl & Lung.

Hence the question, if anyone knows any dealers in that area. It's a strange situation, as she was sold her current piano by a tuner who's been a friend of the family for years. But having seen that piano I wouldn't trust him to recommend anything else. So she has that upright to get rid of, but has just inherited a Bluthner upright (I don't know size or age) which the tuner has said could be worth some thousands of pounds. But for various reasons she doesn't want to keep that Bluthner, and would prefer to try to sell it and by a little grand.

Part of the reason is that her kids were visiting too and were all over the grand, and she, like me some months ago, thinks that having a beautiful sounding and looking piano in the house is likely to motivate them to practice more. Certainly worked with my 2.

So, any recommendations of dealers in that area?