Age of a John Brinsmead & Sons Piano

[ellie_137]

Hi,
I've had a look online, but I cannot find an approximate age of a piano with the serial number 056989. I would be very grateful if you could assist me with determining the approximate age of the piano.

[Bill Kibby]

Dating a piano purely on the basis of numbers is often not as simple as it seems, and one reason for this is the fact that most pianos have several numbers inside. Although it is not unusual for a serial number to have 6 digits, in 60 years I have never seen one that began with a zero.
If you just open the top of the piano and look inside, you should find other numbers there.
Are you able to post photos here to show what the whole piano looks like, or email them to me to post?
Assuming that this is an upright piano, have a look at
http://www.pianohistory.info/edwardian.html

[ellie_137]

I had a look on top of the piano and inside the piano and I couldn’t find any other numbers. I too am rather confused as to why the serial number begins with a zero, as I couldn't find any information about the serial number online.

I struggled to attach some pictures to this message, so I created an open Dropbox folder with some
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k3obum62mgbzi81/AAB0lbmAKcrMCfbl-0TV-EWNa?dl=0

[Bill Kibby]

I was guessing that your piano was made around the 1914 war. This website needs some help with the software that is supposed to upload photos.
Here are (I hope they load) some pictures of Brinsmead numbers. Like yours, they have 5 digits preceded by a circle, but it's not a zero, it's a felt pad to cushion the top when it is closed.
On that basis, yours would be 56989, which suggests that it was made in 1906.

[ellie_137]

Many thanks for all your help Mr Kibby. I very much appreciate you having spent quite a while researching answers to my questions. I am delighted that you were able to find out when my piano was built- I hadn’t realised it was quite as old as that!

Your point that that there was once a felt pad on the zero of the serial number makes a lot of sense.

Many thanks again for all your help.

Best wishes,

Eleanor