Yamaha and Bechstein Grey market

[D.L. Bullock]

I have sold many of the mistakenly-called "grey market" yamahas and I made
it clear to everyone that those pianos came from customers in Japan who
traded them in.  I did have about 2% of them that had gotten bad enough to
be restrung and have soundboard shimming.  However, these are the same
problems EVERY piano of this age will be having.  The worst one was a 1949
Yamaha that had to be restrung.  One of the best needing only cleaning was a
designer art case from 1950's.  These pianos included not only Yamaha, but
Kawai, Apollo and several other Asian piano makes that no one ever heard of.
I do not expect any problems from old Asian pianos beyond normal problems
from a 40-60 year old piano. If there were problems my customers would have
been calling me to repair things.  I give what some of the local dealers
call an extreme warranty on even used pianos. If you do enough prepping and
repair just as you would on any 30+ year old piano, they will hold up as
well as any made-in-America piano.

I also have prepped imported containers of about 80 German and European
pianos.  They were the same ages and older and they had EXACTLY the same
problems that the Yamahas had.  They included Bechstein, Bosendorffer,
Feurich, Seiler, Erard, Chickering and many others.  The change in climate
does make a difference, but if the piano stays here 6 months or more, all
the damage that will come from the change will have occurred.  Repair the
problems and sell it with a clear conscience.  I noticed the EXACT problems
from pianos that were picked up in NY, Chicago and northern US locales and
brought to Texas when I was there.  After about 6 months all changes had
happened.  Members of the Koelzer family in Fort Worth used to do just that
back in the 60's.

I am not, never have, and never will be foisting off some piece of trash
onto the unsuspecting public.

D.L. Bullock
www.thepianoworld.com
St. Louis