Steinway Duo-Art

[Les Smith]

Hi Dave.

To begin with, it's either a Duo-Art OR an Ampico, not both. They
both were higly-sophisticated, reproducing players, but were two
distinct entities. The Ampico went into pianos of the American Piano
Co., like Chickering and Knabe, while the Duo-Art went into instruments
like Steck and Weber, which were obviously products of the Aeolian
corp. The Steinway Duo-Art was NOT produced by Steinway. Aeolian had
Steinways custom-made with extended cases to house the player mechanism
and AEOLIAN did the player mechanism installation. The difference between
the Duo-Art and Ampico is at once apparent because the Ampico has all the
controls and the spoolbox housed in a drawer that pulls out from under the
keybed  and the Duo-Art has the spoolbox located under the music desk with
the controls located in a fold-down key slip. VERY late Duo-Arts had all the
controls located in the sp[oolbox, but these are very rare. It is not pos-
sible to give an estimate as to the value of the piano without seeing it.
There were three distinct versions of the Duo-Art, Early, Late and Very-Late
and each commands a different price, with the very late model commanding the
highest price because it is the rarest. Further it is not possible to tell
if the player is intact, even if it's playing, unless one is intimately
familiar with the working of the player mechanism. I recently restored a
beautiful Weber Duo-Art in which some previous technician had completely
disabled the Duo-Art expression mechanism by chiseling out the inner work-
ings of the expression box and throwing them away! Fortunately I had another
box to use or the expression mechanism never would have worked, thus greatly
diminishing the value of the instrument. As to the value of the piano it-
self, even that can't be estimated with any accuracy without seeing the in-
strument. You really need someone who is experienced with rerstoring BOTH
Steinways AND Duo-Art players to take a look at this for you. Many tech-
nicians do one or the other, farmimg out the part that they don't know.
You need someone who does both to  check this out if you want it fairly
evaluated. I have seen unrestored Steinway Duo-Arts go for little more
than the piano itself. The cost of a restoration would be the cost of
restoring the piano, which will vary with whether it needs a new pinblock,
a new soundboard, etc., plus the cost of restoring the player mechanism.
I charge $3500 for restoring a Duo-Art player, if I'm doing the piano re-
storation as well. Someone else who subcontracts the player work will
probably charge more. The value of the fully restored instrument will vary
with both the type of Duo-Art involved (erly, late, or very late) and also
how competently Both the player and and piano were restored. A couple of
years ago I got 35K for a Steinway Model B with a late period Duo-Art in
it. By the same token an early model M sililar to yours went for only
half that amount because the piano itself was unexceptional. Both those
restored prices also included cases that were refinished. I hope this helps
somewhat. I will see that you name and e-mail address and a description
of the instrument gets placed in front of the kind of people who have an
interest in instruments like this. For anyone who has ever heard one of
these instruments properly restored and doing it's thing, it's an experience
you won't soon forget. Unlike a regular "note-knocker" player, the Duo-Art
added all the dynamics and nuances of expression of a concert-caliber pianist
to the music as well. So good was the reproduction of the pianist that many
artists such as Rachmaninoff, Paderewski, Hoffman and Levine chose to make
rolls for the Duo-Art and Ampico rather than phonograph recordings, because
the reproduction of the player mechanism was closer to the original. Truly
awesome instruments, especially when one considers that the technology that
produced such fantastic results is now 3/4 of a century old!

Les Smith
lessmith@buffnet.net