Network of piano inspectors

[Barrie Heaton]

It seems to me what is needed is a country list of tuners - dealers who are prepared to go out and inspect, value pianos for folk who are selling and
buying for a small fee

The reports could be attached to the details for the pianos for sale to help the buyer also they could be called on to go and look at pianos advertised in there area for visitors who have seen a piano for sale not listed on the Internet.

Any comments on this a price you would be happy to pay for such a service

Barrie,

[Melodytune]

I guess you are looking for responses from the public about this, but I agree with the idea you have, oftern I'm asked to inspect pianos and charge a fee for doing so which most people are happy with.

[A440]

Like many tuners I also deal in pianos. I find it rather a difficult situation when called to view a piano for a restoration project for a customer. By the law of averages, the piano they are looking at is not going to be entirely suitable for restoration. You don't want to seem as if you are just plugging one of your pianos.
people do not realize quite how picky shops are. In my experience at least 19 out of 20 piano for sale calls are not worth looking at so we filter them out over the phone. Of that 1 out of 20 well over half are not entirely suitable.
What I don't understand is why people don't trust their local reputable dealer. We do it for a living and it is by no means an easy living. We offer a service. If people want to go off and chance their arm buying something they have no technical knowledge about, good luck to them but they've set themselves a hard task with pianos.
I can count on one hand the number of really good bargains I have seen purchased in the last 10 years by private buyers( I do about 10 private sale piano moves a week.)
If it's any good the local dealer will pay the money for it and snap it up before it goes to private sale. That's why, if you want a decent used piano there is really no option but to go to your local dealer who will have restored it well under the price you could get outside work done for.
Have faith, we know what we are doing and, sadly, there are no cheap short-cuts to a worthwhile piano.

[Melodytune]

I am oftern asked to look at pianos both as a private sale and from dealers alike. If the piano in question is a private sale I try and get as much information as possible from the customer about what they know about the piano, I have occasionally managed to save them money by talking them out of something that clearly isn't worth looking at from a private sale and if the dealer in question is someone I work with then I can encourage the customer accordingly - I can then go and examine the piano (if need be) with them or on their behalf.

Piano teachers are oftern influential in this matter, they sometimes advise their pupil and then suggest that their tuner go over the piano with them to make sure its technically ok.

[Gill the Piano]

A44o wonders why people don't trust their local reputable dealer; I find it's not a question of trust, it's a question of cost. The pianos I'm often asked to vet only cost about two hundred quid, and are generally straight strung overdampers for their kids to start on. Dealers - even if they sold that sort of thing - wouldn't be able to offer it at a comparable price, because by the time they've tuned and delivered it, any profit is gone. And they couldn't give it an unconditional guarantee anyway, because of the age and standard of the instrument. It's one thing to stand by a quality piano, but a clunker...? Most people whose kids are starting out don't want to spend a thousand quid to find out their kids hate playing the piano; and I'm afraid a lot of dealers' words about 'buying it back for the same price' (which I've heard of on more than one occasion) rarely come to fruition. So an inspection service is needed - but we need to be realistic about what most people can afford and what they want, viz, a piano whose notes are in the right order and which won't fall to pieces in the next two years! All we can do is try to educate them, but when it comes to the crunch, most people don't want to spend much money on a beginner's piano.

[Melodytune]

Very true it really does come down to cost, and Gill raises some good points here with regard to profit margins. If someone were to spend a reasonable amount on a new/second hand piano then I think its fair to say that a reputable dealer would oftern offer around 80% of the purchase price against an upgrade while offer less if its a case of selling the piano back to the dealer in question.

Some people choose to try and sell their piano privately in the hope that they can get something closer to its real value back. This is why the older straight strung pianos come up for sale on a regular basis. Most of the dealers I work with won't actually sell them.

[classic-keyboard]

don't know much about people wanting to buy pianos but I do know about people wanting to sell Hammonds. Because the Hammond organ is an icon people suppose that anything made by Hammond is worth a fortune. So I get a lot of calls from people asking me to come and buy their instrument (or come and value it, with a subliminal implication that they expect me to buy it). Not just 9 times out of 10 but 99 times out of 100 the organ is worthless. in other words, for every ?2,000 C3 there's 99 transistor spinets. The relevance to this thread may be that in most cases the people concerned don't appreciate the difference, because they don't play. I suppose that when mum and dad are inspired by little Johnny's burgeoning musical talent they want to know if piano x is any good but they're not equipped to judge. Aren't the piano teachers the best people to step in here? I've heard it said so many times that for grades 1-4 a digital is a better choice for many non-musical parents in space-constrained if not cash-constrained circumstances. These old clunkers that float about the place are great for teaching you which note is which but they won't develop touch or control and they might not even be much good for teaching relative pitch. Most people (though sadly not me) can tell a classic car from a basket case but I think those of us who can play don't always realise how hard it is for a non-musician to tell the difference between playable and scrap-for-the-ivory.[/i]

[PianoGuy]

I've heard it said so many times that for grades 1-4 a digital is a better choice for many non-musical parents in space-constrained if not cash-constrained circumstances. [/i]

An 88-note digital takes up exactly the same floor space as a Yamaha C110. Some digitals are wider. A Kemble Classic has an even smaller footprint than most digitals. The 'space' thing is no argument, but the cost thing is. A decent digital is a better bet than a Victorian clunker at any grade, but a decent digital will still set you back more than most parents are willing to shell out for a first piano, unless you count in the stage pianos like the P60. Trouble is, most parents want a 'nice piece of furniture' which the P60 is not. The practice of putting digital innards in an old Victorian piano case is a solution, but somewhat silly, like sticking an LED display inside a long-case clock, but I'm sure there are people with enough humour or tastelessness out there to attempt it.

I like your Hammond story. eBay is full of them, although you inhabit a strange world where the B3 is a worse organ than the A100- essentially the same engine with a built in amp, quality Jensen speakers and a reverb channel with its own extra speaker all packed into a compact cabinet taking up less space than the B3 and it's worth about half the price. That's not accounting for the fact that the B3 owner then has to find a tone cabinet.

Sounder, anyone??? Going cheap!

[Gill the Piano]

As for taking the teacher to look at a piano, that's a bit like taking the driving instructor to look at a car; he can tell if it's going all right for the moment, but a mechanic is more likely to spot if the wheel's going to come off on the next bend (said the Morris Minor owner, with feeling... ).

[classic-keyboard]

pianoguy,

At risk of getting seriously off-topic here, the best you can say about an A100 is that it's as good as a B3, not better. The late Alan Young did a genius job on the A100, convincing a reluctant Laurens Hammond that you could build a self-contained version of the 3 series at an affordable price point but his design has many compromises, not least the severely challenged sound system which he 'fudged' by heavily rolling off the treble (thus boosting tthe bass) in the power amp. In other words, if you choose to play an A100 through its built-in speakers then you ain't a real Hammond guy. Also, the A100's build quality was not on a par with the B3s and C3s even of the same period - never mind the instruments built in the 'golden years' between the late 50's and early 60's. Much greater use of chipboard etc meant that even with its built-in power amp, reverb amp and three speakers the A100 is still lighter than a C3. But you're right about the important bits - an A100 is identical to a B3 right up to the preamp output terminals. There's an A100 sitting across the room from me right now, in bits because the foam Hammond started using to seal the manuals in 1964 was unstable and broke down into a caustic goo which has to be removed before it eats the contact wires. It's a nice organ but... Anyway, the B3 has that special cabinet shape that makes it the icon it is.

I've had this discussion before and compared the C3 and the A100 to the Jaguar Mark II and S-Type. Actually you could argue that the S type is a better car - it had the E-type's independent rear suspension and a better boot - and forward of the C post it was identical to the Mark II. Nevertheless, the Mark II is worth more because it's iconic. And there's nothing wrong with that. (Unless you own an S-type and want to sell it, I suppose.) You could say the A100 is like the S-type because it's a C3 from the preamp back but unlike the S-type/Mark II it isn't built to the same standard as the C3 and the extra features aren't actually all that good.

The real scandal is the D-152. Now that's a C3, built like a C3, with a proper fallboard, a real built-in speaker system based on the PR-40, 32-note concave pedalboard and a unique all-valve synthesiser giving you 32' bass. And it's worth a fraction of the price of a C3, never mind a B3.

[really shutting up this time...]

[PianoGuy]

The real scandal is the D-152. Now that's a C3, built like a C3, with a proper fallboard, a real built-in speaker system based on the PR-40, 32-note concave pedalboard and a unique all-valve synthesiser giving you 32' bass. And it's worth a fraction of the price of a C3, never mind a B3.

[really shutting up this time...]

Blimey!

Can you find me one? .... Or an RT3 !?

Guy

[Gill the Piano]

What language are you speaking, exactly? It doesn't seem to be the Queen's English !

[Geminoz]

Sometimes Gill, ignorance is Bliss....at least our minds are not clogged up with all that alpha/numerical stuff

[Melodytune]

The piano teacher will probably have a closer working relationship with the customer since they will see each other around once a week - the piano tuner will (idealy) visit once or twice a year.

The teacher can oftern provide useful input as to what may be perceived to be suitable for the child but the tuner/technician can then confirm this or raise any concerns. When asked I would have the final say as to whether a piano is suitable or not.
Regards

[Mike_Hendry]

A really nice attempt to get the Topic back on track there.
Many, by no means all, piano tuners & technicians here in Australia would do piano assessing and/or valuing as a matter of course. I have to say that I think some of them are way off the beam at times, but I put that down to many of them not having been involved in retail sales, which I regard as a pre-requisite for real accuracy of opinion. (Ignoring those who put absurdly high values on instruments to make their clients feel better).

I'm a bit surprised to learn from this topic that it's not more commonplace in the UK, given the sheer numbers of pianos you have there, plus the extraodinary diversity of instruments in age, quality and condition.
However, I do agree most decidedly on the piano teacher question. Most piano teachers are quite representative of the instrumentalists they teach. That is, as a group, pianists know less about their chosen instrument than other musicians. An opinion based on listening, observing and trying to educate piano teachers over the past 28 years (and some time spent as a Brass player as a valid comparison).

On other points of interest raised ... would love to own a B3 ... but was most interested to learn about the D152(?). Will keep the eyes peeled for one of those as a result. Thank you.

And ...
there are some people in this country who would question the use of the word Jaguar and quality in the same sentence. This is not to denigrate Jag owners (of which I was one, for a while), but unfortunately the imbalance between design integrity and manufacturing execution were often Poles apart. Sadly!

Enjoyed the read hugely.

cheers

Mike Hendry
Melbourne, Australia