Upright piano - J Gilchrist, Edinburgh

[johnnyboyc_uk]

Hi,

I'm trying to get some information about an upright piano a friend has - it has the label 'J Gilchrist, Edinburgh' on it, however performing a search doesn't yield anything useful. I did find this link to a decent pic of one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandaeddington/5605790980/

Could one of you well-informed people enlighten me a little about this piano?

Many thanks :)

[Bill Kibby]

James Gilchrist does not appear in any of my Edinburgh lists from the 1800s, but by 1911, he was at 59 South Clerk Street. Listed among the Pianoforte Makers and Warehouses, he was almost certainly just a retailer who (like so many others) put his name onto pianos bought in from wholesalers. Any further clues will be hidden inside the piano, as explained at
http://pianogen.org/datemarks.html

Can you post photos of the whole piano here, or email them to me to post?

[johnnyboyc_uk]

Thanks for that! I do have some pictures - I'll email them to you directly.

[Bill Kibby]

The photo does not show anything that dates the piano, it could easily be from the twenties or thirties, so unless there are marks inside, we have no way of being more accurate, or even knowing who actually made it.