Customer ripped off?

[bobelue@hiwaay.net]

I had a situation this week involving a Whitney spinet.  The lady said when
she called that "it looks rusty back in there."  When I got there, she said
she paid $5K for the spinet, "new," in the early 80's.  When I raised the
top of the piano, sure enough, rust.  The pins were rusty from the tenor
break on up and so were the coils.  The piano has a few wound strings above
the break.  They, too, were cruddy so tht it was difficult to tell the
difference between them and the plain strings.  But below the break, the
wound strings were almost like new.  The coils were wound with only about
two or less turns.

The top of the pin block, and the top back beam had the graining almost
black and the decals looked as if someone had scrubbed vigorously.  The
hammers were gray/black.  I rubbed my finger along the hammer rest rail, and
ended up with pure soot on my fingers.  When I eased the piano from the
wall, I could tell the sound board had been scrubbed, with black still
behind the posts and along the junction of the ribs/soundboard.  The clasps
that hold the top closed were missing, both the plunger and the receiver.
The backcheck wires and lifter wires were heavily corroded with rust.

She said no one had been worked on the piano since she bought it, again,
"new' for $5K in the early 80's.  The Atlas indicates it was built in '76.
Due to the rust, black grain, and soot, my assumption was that the piano had
been in a fire, but she bought it as "new" at probably at least twice or
more its retail price.

THE POINT:  To cap the stack, one of the new-looking bass strings was
brought around the left side of the pin to the lower-left of the string, and
on up across to its pin.  MY QUESTION as one new to "teching":  Is this type
of stringing some arcane solution to a problem?  I've never heard of such
before, although I have seen sloppy, hacky work.

Bobby
Tuscumbia, AL