In a message dated 3/30/99 11:49:44 PM, you wrote: <<"It seems pretty clear to me even if I do live in a fog bank... David Ilvedson, RPT">> David; If you are "estimating" doesn't that mean you a making a SWAG? If so, doesn't the "fog" of estimation, without salient fact, cloud your vision?? :-) Sorry...... I couldn't stop myself. No, making just one piano does not make much sense, unless that one piano was made to set up production lines, techniques, jigs, training workers, etc. which 'could' have been the case. Or if the company started late in the year and only one piano was finished. Naturally there could have been more pianos made but we don't know anything for sure, except that No. 1 was made. This would have made it the first 'and' last. If we follow your reasoning, i.e., " Between 1840 and 1845 1200 pianos were built or 1199 to be exact. In 1845 they began the 1200th piano.", does it mean that Bord made 240 pianos the first year or fourty pianos the first year?..............But then you said "to be exact" and to be exact there are only four years between 1840 and 1845 so that would mean that 300 pianos were made each year (299.75). These, plus the one made in 1840 would make the 1200 to start 1845. The real truth probably lies somewhere in between this junk :-) The point is we don't know and the atlas and manufacturers records don't provide definitive information. We can "estimate" but we don't know. To put this in a more useful perspective please accept this hypothesis, i.e., a Steinway piano with a serial number of #986 would be a valuable instrument would it not? The antithesis to this would be that there was no #986 Steinway built. Do we know? How? The atlas says Steinway started in 1856 and during 1856/57 produced 1000 pianos, or at least implies such. Questions arising from that information: 1. Did Steinway start numbering from No.1 or No.1000 ? 2. If the No.1 answer is correct how valuable is Steinway No. 986 ? 3. If the No.1000 answer is correct, is Steinway No. 986 a fake ? 4. Would a Steinway numbered No.1,986 be more likely not a fake ? If so, when was it made? 1856? 1857? 5. Did Steinway really make 500 pianos a year their first two years in business working out of the kitchen?? 6. Would you be willing to wager the value of a Steinway No. 986 on 'any' answer to 'any' of those questions? David I don't know or pretend to know the answers, that is why my evaluations and apprasials of older instruments say "circa" :-) Jim Bryant (FL)
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