Tolkien cottage piano sold by Robert Maver

[RaunchyOnion]

I have this piano and my friend was about to chop it up for firewood and I told him he was outa his mind. Well i have been able to find very little about this piano so here are some pictures hopefully this community can let me know more about this piano.

[Bill Kibby]

This is not a royal piano. The retailer's name is actually Maver, and the important name here is Tolkien, the maker. It is difficult to imagine that "Exhibition Model" has any significance other than implying a connection with those coveted medals that all the makers wanted. My Names page
http://www.pianohistory.info/names.html
gives some information about Royal Letters Patents, which are not royal warrants, they are just patents. This is a typical Victorian Cottage Piano, as described at
http://www.pianohistory.info/victorian.html
The pierced fretwork front has been replaced by a plain board.

I would guess it was made around 1866. I spend a lot of my time trying to preserve historical pieces like this, but here in the UK, there is no funding or financial support available for the project, and the monetary value of such pieces is non-existent unless thousands of pounds have been spent on restoration.