Pfiefer Upright

[Farrell]

I serviced a 1908 Charles Pfiefer upright yesterday. This upright was BY FAR the nicest, best condition, old upright I have ever seen - by a mile. It is hard to even believe that is was old - but I looked up the serial number in Pierce, and it was 85 notes - so no doubt about age. This piano was so clean. In every way it looked like a well maintained 20 year old piano. Even the leather top on the dowel that connects between the sustain pedal arm and the sustain rod on the action looks like new. The hide glue squeeze out at the base of the hammer shanks is clear and clean. Every action part - everything - looks like near-new.

Either this piano found its way into a time warp, was completely remanufactured a few years back, or a Charles Pfiefer is simply a different animal. This piano played so nicely. It sounded terrific. The owner sat down (young German lady) and ripped into some Rachmaninoff (sp?) after I tuned it - WOW! I asked her if she was aware of it having been rebuilt - she didn't know. So she called her dad, who bought the piano some years back - her dad was in Germany - and he is a piano technician. We had a nice chat about the piano - he said never been rebuilt as far as he knew. He thought it was a nice piano - what an understatement.

Terry Farrell