I'm not sure if it adds or subtracts value. We have three signed grands here. One 1932 L signed by Charles Steinway, a 20 year old B by the youngest Steinway, and our 56 Baldwin D has Iturbi's name on it. When I rebuilt the L, we taped over the signature of Charles when re-bronzing to preserve it. I think it WOULD add some value, although how much is anyone's guess. I might think it would look a bit messy to have many signatures on one grand. I'd leave the new one alone.....for a few years Too bad you don't have Rubenstein's sig on your piano. I would think it would definately add value. Do any of you date and sign pianos when tuning. I often see really old signatures on upright plates. I once had a customer with a 1900 something-or-other with a date of someone in Nome, AK dated 1909. No bullet holes in it, so it must have been in a missionary house in those days. what else was in Nome then, missionaries, brothels and saloons! Paul "John D. Chapman" <johnchapman at asolare.org> Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org 02/03/2009 05:31 AM Please respond to caut at ptg.org To caut at ptg.org cc Subject [CAUT] to sign or not to sign Our university music department (Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) just bought a new Steinway D. This has started an unexpected discussion. Our old S&SD was bought in 1968 for a concert by Authur Rubinstein. During the last few years, when a concert was given on this piano by a noteworthy pianist, that pianist was asked to sign the plate with a black sharpie. Among the signatures are Stephen Hough, Ruth Loredo, Alicia de Larrocha, Menachem Pressler, Richard Goode, Philippe Entremont, Arcadi Volodos, and Mark Andre Hamlin. Some of our students and faculty are thrilled to see those signatures as reminders that the piano they are playing has been played by such great pianists. Others think it degrades the piano. The discussion is: do we want to continue this practice of plate signing on the new S&S D. Someone asked if it increases or decreases the value of the piano. (Probably not either way.) What are your thoughts on this? John D. Chapman Wake Forest University Winston-Salem NC 27109 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090203/d4e7ae7e/attachment.html> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: johnchapman.vcf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 223 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20090203/d4e7ae7e/attachment.obj>
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