Grey Market Schimmel!!

[Robin Stevens]

Hi List.

Had quite a shock today when I called to tune my last piano of the day...The
customer had informed me that they had purchased a 20 year old Schimmel
upright from a major Piano store in Adelaide, South Australia.

The previous Schimmels that I have tuned have been very fine instruments
indeed...A new Schimmel in Australia of this size retails for around $30,000
while a U1 sells for about $12,000.

When the customer told me that they only paid around $1900 for this piano my
suspicions were aroused.

What I saw was a very typical Grey Market/bootleg piano...VERY loose tuning
pins....Hammers pointing in all directions....the whole of the Action and
back of the key tops looked like they had been painted with dirty brown
water....also, when any screw was removed, rust covered the screw.

MY point is that while the customer only paid $1900 for this piano, the
retailer had taken advantage of the young couple who, through a lack of
money and knowledge of the pitfalls in buying a second hand piano thought
that they were buying a suitable instrument for their children to learn on.

This retailer, while making a short term profit on this sale had forgotten
that a dissatisfied customer has a very wide range of friends and
acquaintances, who can very quickly pass the word around about this shonky
deal.

In my area when pianos arrive with loose tuning pins, after a couple of dry
summers they are untunable.

The bottomline about this piano is ....is this a piano from Germany that has
spent its 20 year life in Japan?... or does Schimmel have a Factory in
Japan, or the Philippines making pianos especially for the High Humidity
area?

The overall workmanship and quality I saw in this piano was appalling.

I will close by saying that People who sell these misfit of pianos are
underestimating the power of bad publicity.

Robin Stevens
Port Pirie South Australia
08 8633 0533
pianotun@pirie.gulf.net.au