Ascherberg piano

[Steve071261]

Hi,

anybody heard of a piano manufacturer called Ascherberg or Ascherburg? I've not come across the name myself and a quick search of the lists on this site haven't turned it up, although I may be looking in the wrong place

thanks

Steve

[Bill Kibby]

They are quite well-known in the trade, espoecially as music publishers - Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew, and the name still survives, I think under the wing of Chappells now, although their archives were lost in a fire. I have some old ads and bits and pieces, just a few pages. No dates of serial numbers are available.

[Mark_Aussie]

Anyone else got one of these, It has bur walnut + spruce fur wood, ivory keys, brass handles, brass locks, brass candle stick holders and carved wooden legs and was tuned in Sydney Australia in Septemer 1885. Anyone have an idea about how much it is worth????????? I know it was made in Dresden,,,bombed out in the war.... It's been in my family for 30 yrs.
Any help appreciated...Thanks...... Mark

[Bill Kibby]

I can't speak for Australia, but lots of people over here have Ascherberg pianos of the late 1800s, it just depends how old it was in 1885. See

http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-gen/valua ... ianos.html

[fleetcanuck]

We have just acquired an Ascherberg piano. Three rebuilders and piano tuners have advised it is not worth the money to rebuild it, as it has the birdcage action. Does anyone with an Ascherberg have any thoughts on this? I understand that some overdamper pianos are better than others, and wonder where the Ascherberg fits into the scheme of things.

[Bill Kibby]

I don't quite understand why you asking if we've heard of Ascherberg when you have entered a posting under that name, which already talks about them? Read the previous entries.

[Plado]

I think the Pearce's Piano Atlas states that Ascherberg pianos were supplied to someone like the Queen of Hawaii.

I found an Ascherberg upright piano which had the strangest of piano-actions in that the whole of the hammer and action was permanetly attached to the key frame and the only way to remove the action was to slide the whole keyboard keyframe with action bolted to it just in the same way as a Grand Piano would have its action removed. It made working on it rather cumbersome having to place the whole monster action keyboard hulk on a bench. But I fiddled about with it for over an hour before I found out why the action wouldn't separate from the keys.

Not a bad piano. The Grands are quite nice.

[Bill Kibby]

It is quite common for german uprights of the late 1800s to have integral keys and action. It's a distinctive german feature - awful things!

[fleetcanuck]

Thank you for your reply.

Our piano, I have found, is 124 years old today, having been sold to the previous owner's uncle on 25 November, 1880, in Stoke-On-Trent.

The action is made by Morgenstern & Kotrade of Leipzig.

I have been trying to clean it up a bit. On this one the action comes out as a unit and leaves the keys in place. Once it is cleaned up we will see how it sounds. I did notice that some of the felt on the hammers has moth damage, so I imagine that it will need some work.

The action seems to be quite solid, though I do see that one small piece has a crack in it.

If I can not find someone in our area who is keen to work on this project, I look forward to puttering away at the project when I have some spare time.

[Bill Kibby]

Does this mean you have the original receipt? If so, I wonder if you would be able to sell me a good copy or scan?

Can you find any numbers inside the top, so that we can use them as a guide to the date of others?
What is your area? Stoke?

Read on for contact details...

[fleetcanuck]

I do not have the original receipt with a price. There is a sheet of paper glued to the inside of the key cover which gives the delivery information. The seller was A. J. Beard, Professor of Music, Tean, Stoke-On-Trent. It would have been interesting to see the original price.

The number on the sound board is 2968. This number is actually stamped into the wood. That number is also found on many of the case components, however, on the frame at the back it is 2969!

We do not have a scanner, so I cannot send you the image.

I hope that I did not sound presumptuous saying that I may do some of the restoration myself. I realize that piano tuners and technicians are highly trained and skilled people and that much of what they do is somewhat of a fine art. I would not attempt a lot of things in my free time, however, we have been told by three experts that they are unwilling to do the work on this piano because they do not feel it is worthwhile to work on the birdcage pianos. The organist from our church, a highly respected musician (and instrument builder), thinks these fine old pianos are worth preserving and have a unique sound, much like other old instruments and that they should be preserved. With his encouragement I am doing as much clean up as possible and then we will see what it needs. We are not in a hurry, and will try to do only what is reasonable.

I am not in England, rather in the middle of Canada, in Winnipeg.

[Plado]

I do sympathize greatly with your plight on this. I feel pretty sure Bill will back me up on this. We call them overdampers here in the UK but on the other side of the pond as you say, they're known as "birdcage" actions and are rather more rare. I don't know about Canada but in the USA they are even more rare becuase they like to upgrade things to more modern and efficient design and only retain true relics and antiques of any worth. Birdcage pianos are never worth much. The rich and famous in history probably never owned one for long !

When I trained at college in London 1977 I was told by a customer that previous tuners had refused to tune or do any work on her overdamper - in fact one recruited professional tuner had walked into the room, taken one look at the piano and said, "I'm not tuning that" and turned around and walked out!

She was delighted that I was prepared to tackle it and then when I began my career in the county of Devon I encountered more birdcage pianos per square mile than almost anywhere in the country. They were in farms; churches; church halls; schools yes modern schools!; pubs; clubs and private homes. The county was infested with them. I soon realized that if I refused to work on them I would probably have next to no income so I had to do what I could with them. Some of them exceptionally were quite nice though. I remember a Bluthner from about 1895 which was a lovely piano and the dampers actually worked well.

It was only when coming to the point of needing to replace those frightful dampers in some of the most appallingly made overdampers, that I found my skills were just not as good as the original factory who probably had precision jigs to cut the felt. I would be on a hiding to nowhere. I'd very likely make the damping worse. So I left that alone and advised the client didn't spend any money on my frustrated attempts to "improve" it. They usually upgraded to a better piano but not always.

However I will wind up this long tome by saying I think you have no choice living where you do (given the unpopularity of the work) than to have a good go at it yourself. Good luck I say.
I might finally tell you something that may make some technicians cringe! I sawed off the top note of the keyframe on an Overdamper in my neighbourhood back in the 1980's in order to "Transpose" the keyboard moving it up one semitone. Each key was then playing the next hammer up, in the series. Why? you may ask, did I do that? The strings were too rusty to bring up to concert pitch. Most of them would break on tuning them a quarter of the way up from 415 to 440hz. The family had just lost their father (headmaster of a school died of a heart attack). The 2 daughters both played flute. The mother wanted to accompany them on a piano which had just been donated to them. They were very short of money with the one part-time income left in the household.
So in desperation I solved their problem. The whole family was "over the moon" about it when they could sit there and play middle C and it out came a true concert pitch C.

The piano wasn't worth 20 pounds as it stood, it was just junk so in just half an hour I'd got it playing at A440 and it wasn't noticable or a problem that the keyboard was then 1.5cm further to the right; the top note ended on a black G#. There was a gap at the bass end of 1.5cm but it worked. You couldn't do that with an overstrung under-damper!
Plado

[Bill Kibby]

Thanks for that, it's very interesting to know the likely date of this one, but many of the numbers are much larger, and they certainly went on long after 1883. Going by memory, this may have been as Ascherberg Perzina. I'll see what I can find out.

[Bill Kibby]

Decisions like that cannot be made remotely, you need a tuner-technician on the spot. It appears to have been made around a century ago, but no dates of numbers are available. Isermann was the maker of the action - the working parts of the notes. The maker has something to do with the Duke, the piano does not. The photos are not detailed enough to tell me any more. See
http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-gen/reports.html

[Bill Kibby]

It doesn't look especially small, and Yacht Pianos are much smaller, with shorter keyboards like this, but a fold-away keyboard. The makers' name is on the front - Ascherberg, but no dates of serial numbers are published. I would guess from the case that it might be twenties, but very similar pianos were made in the fifties. If you know how to remove the action (the working parts of the notes) safely it may have the action makers' name and number on the rear, and we may be able to date the piano. See also

http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-gen/datem ... ianos.html

[Mark_Aussie]

Well there you go, after looking for another Emil Ascherberg piano on the net on and off for 5 years, someone else has the same piano in Australia. Mine is in Sydney and it has the number 1196 on it inside the top lid. I believe it was made prior to 1880. It was tuned in Sydney in 1885.

[Mark_Aussie]

The company is said to have been bombed out of existance during the second world war when the Americans decided to level Dresden. No records of dates or other info has remained.

[chrisp]

There are some good photos of a grand here:
http://www.lunds.com/Auctions/AntiqueAn ... 964343183/

[Kenpullen]

I have recently acquired an Ascherberg Perzina Baby Grand which plays well and has recently been tuned. Its registration no. is 2141.
Does any Ascherberg enthusiast have history details of and where this piano has been.

[AndreaS]

Hello All,

I'm Andrea From Israel.
I have an Ascherberg #5069 which belongs to my Family for 3 generations.
My Grandfather bought it in Mid 50's at Buenos-Aires, Argentina.
I got it as a present for my 12th birthday and when my family imegrated to Israel in 1989 we had it brought by boat.

Can any one tell me more about the history of this specific piano serie or my specific piano ?

Many Thanks in Advance.

Here is a recent picture of this magnificent instrument:

[Bill Kibby]

It looks like something from the twenties, but nobody can trace the life history of every piano, and no archives are available for this maker. Have a look at

http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-gen/archives.html