Collingwood pianos....?

[iconic]

great site you have here gentlemen, and ladies I should add....I've spent a while looking around.

I'm looking for a piano for bit of noodling and learning on, just needs to basically function at the moment....I'm 53 now and tried to learn when I was 10-12 years old without sucess...first teacher would rap my hand like a had a wasp on the back of it when I hit a bum note and the second was a 65 year old lady, and back then I thought all old ladies must like pints of sherry at 3pm....

I got a lovely old Farsisa TS series Midi-Digital organ/synth but really can't get on with the split level keyboard and fake keys....my 4 year daughter loved it though and I can't get her off it. I play bass (guitar) but just got that piano bug and can't shake it off so got to get one.

OK, I've found a Collingwood upright just up the road, last tuned a year ago so that's a bonus, its still being used....anyone know what they are like, good, bad or ugly....no idea of year, wants £40 collected.
I've looked at a few freebies and they have been scrappers....missed some crackers though being too late to the party. Ironically I got a free one for the pub next door complete with candle holders and even repaired the stuck keys...should of have had that one myself...but the tuning is more off than Les Dawsons 'fake bad player' routine he did back in the day....I've heard he was actually a fantastic player, often practicing for 2 hours a day when he could find time?

cheers for any help

Iconic in Norfolk

[vernon]

It's an old trade piano with a "modernised case done in the 1950s.
Probably straight strung and overdamper.
Unless you get a technician to look at it you may be wasting £40.

[Colin Nicholson]

Certainly a piano from the "Good Old Days" .... or it could be a "Blankety Blank"!!

If all fails.... 5th Nov is just around the corner

Good luck with your piano

[iconic]

many thanks for taking time out to reply, advice duly noted.

cheers

[Bill Kibby]

Some names of pianos are taken from addresses, and there could, perhaps, be a connection with Collingwood Street, where Brewer & Co. were located, but the examples I have seen are too late for Brewer & Co..

I have so far found no evidence of a real piano firm called Collingwood, but some seem to at least be the original name transfers:

Certainly, some "Collingwood" examples are transfers added to piano when they are repolished. Some pianos are marked "Amyl-Collingwood", and Amyl was a brand name of the Co-operative Wholesalers Society, who manuafactured pianos in the 1920s and 1930s.