Hello
I need to sell my piano due to moving house and would like some advice about pricing it. It is a modern style upright Challen in what I think is a beech finish. It was purchased new in the early 80s for around £1,800.00 (if memory serves correctly) and I imagine, judging by the modern style, that it was probably manufactured not long before then, but I don't know for sure. It is in excellent condition, but has not been tuned for a while.
Does anyone have any thoughts what is a reasonable price range for me to consider or any advice on how to find out?
Many thanks
Ali
Valuing a 2nd hand piano
Moderators: Feg, Gill the Piano, Melodytune
"........I need to sell my piano due to moving house and would like some advice about pricing it. It is a modern style upright Challen in what I think is a beech finish. It was purchased new in the early 80s for around £1,800.00 (if memory serves correctly) and I imagine, judging by the modern style, that it was probably manufactured not long before then, but I don't know for sure. It is in excellent condition, but has not been tuned for a while. Does anyone have any thoughts what is a reasonable price range for me to consider or any advice on how to find out?......"
You can get a fair idea of what people have decided to ask for their used pianos in this website and others like it, though what price they actually achieve is anyone's guess! Most seem to base their asking price on their tuner's assessment or perhaps get a retailer to assess it. Retail prices are quite a bit higher than private and reflect the value of improvements the shop is SUPPOSED to have added prior to sale. See also http://www.pianoauctions.co.uk/dates.php
English-built pianos of the 70s/80s, of modest dimensions in unfussy, modern styles and satin/matt finishes are not currently 'fashionable' but many of them are the best of their type and excellent value. To my mind the benchmark is the Knight K10 and excellent ones sell for anything between £1500 and £2500. Similar pianos of that style/vintage/reputation are Broadwoods & Chappells with Welmars, Danemanns, Challens and a whole host of names following
I would price it under £2000 but how much under is down to how long you're prepared to wait for a buyer. The piano trade is rather in the doldrums at the moment and there are a lot of used pianos for sale
You can get a fair idea of what people have decided to ask for their used pianos in this website and others like it, though what price they actually achieve is anyone's guess! Most seem to base their asking price on their tuner's assessment or perhaps get a retailer to assess it. Retail prices are quite a bit higher than private and reflect the value of improvements the shop is SUPPOSED to have added prior to sale. See also http://www.pianoauctions.co.uk/dates.php
English-built pianos of the 70s/80s, of modest dimensions in unfussy, modern styles and satin/matt finishes are not currently 'fashionable' but many of them are the best of their type and excellent value. To my mind the benchmark is the Knight K10 and excellent ones sell for anything between £1500 and £2500. Similar pianos of that style/vintage/reputation are Broadwoods & Chappells with Welmars, Danemanns, Challens and a whole host of names following
I would price it under £2000 but how much under is down to how long you're prepared to wait for a buyer. The piano trade is rather in the doldrums at the moment and there are a lot of used pianos for sale
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Gill the Piano
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- Joined: 25 Oct 2003, 19:39
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Exactly. I reckon a "Floater" will limit what a canny dealer will pay to about 300 quid for an average one. If it's a real belter in immaculate nick, maybe up to 500. Early '80s models had Schwanders though, and since production stopped in 1983 or so are relatively rare, but double the prices for one of those.Gill the Piano wrote:If it has a 'floating centre' action, then some dealers are wary; these actions often develop squeaks which can be time-consuming to rectify, so dealers sometimes steer clear. If yours is such a one, then it will have 'Floating Centre Action' on the hammer rest rail.
Private sale price add a couple of hundred, dealers will want to double what they pay.
They can be good sounding little pianos because the overstringing angle was incredibly severe, and as a result, the cabinet is much wider than many seemingly bigger pianos. This can also limit sales because they can be tricky to accommodate. Challen termed this design "Overstrung Plus".
That dated clean Scandinavian-inspired casework will come back into fashion one day. It's really unloved at the moment. If I had the space I'd buy a few and store them for the retro market in a few years' time..... As long as it didn't have the Floating Centres of course!
Yours is probably in a teak finish, which leads me to speculate that it's a Floater. Later Schwander models were usually dressed in mahogany which had usurped teak as the default veneer for popular domestic furniture by the '80s. Beech was virtually unknown on pianos of this era. A version was done in oak for school use, but features utilitarian casework designed to withstand all one of the trendy new Comprehensive Schools could chuck at it. The cheaper Barratt & Robinson was made in the same factory and hundreds still survive in various states in Comprehensives throughout the UK.