J & J HOPKINSON 1 18693

[weenie666]

Hello,

I bought this upright, it's dark wood, and has two candle holders, I did some of my own research and it said it was made between 1840-1850?

Just wondering what else I could find out about this piano?

Thanks!!

[Bill Kibby]

Can you clarify the number? Is the first number 1 separate from the 18693? As you can read on my numbers page at http://www.pianogen.org the earlier numbers published for Hopkinson are incorrect and misleading. The 5 digits suggest a date around 1870, does it fit the description of the top item on this forum, London's cottage pianos?

When you say find out about THIS piano, there is no way of looking up an individual piano by Hopkinson, no archives have survived, and the Piano History Centre probably has more information on Hopkinsons than anyone else.

A few years before I became involved with pianos, N.E. Michel published the first "Piano Atlas" of serial numbers: This work, which became the basis of the Pierce Piano Atlas, was a tremendous achievement, listing thousands of American and other names, but many entries say no more than can be found on the piano anyway, and quite apart from the appalling spelling, conflicting entries, duplicated misspelt entries, and the lack of proper cross-reference, an increasing number of the items Michel published about Hopkinson and others are proving to be wrong or misleading, and this discredits the others.