decal missing

[John Musselwhite]

At 03:21 PM 8/17/01 -0500, Dave wrote:

>If "Baldwin" is not cast in the plate it is probably a 
>forgery.  Unscrupulous techs or dealers have put those little "Baldwin" 
>circles in stencil pianos because that is a widely known name.  The 
>Chickering name gets used a lot too.  If there is the claim that a piano 
>is a major name and it is not cast in the plate, it isn't.

I've seen two "counterfeit" Steinways and in both cases (one here in 
Calgary and one in NYC) the counterfeiters had cleverly glued letters onto 
the plate and painted it to make it look like they were cast into it.

One was a Baldwin grand with a very clever Steinway logo on the plate that 
looked quite real and the other an old Canadian Bell upright with "STEINWAY 
GERMANY" looking like it was cast into the plate.

The Baldwin was in the process of being disassembled and returned to being 
a Baldwin. The Bell is still in the possession of the owners, who bought it 
because it was an "old Steinway". They were most distressed to find out it 
was a fake, though they still cherish it as a piano.

So even a logo with a cast-in appearance can fool people.

                         John

John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
mailto: john@musselwhite.com    http://www.mp3.com/fatbottom