You might give Ken Caulkins at Ragtime West a call. He does beautiful things with high-quality old uprights so I assume he buys them OR he will sell you kits to convert it to a gorgeous player or an orchestrion. Check it out at www.ragtimewest.com I had a 1904 Crown that was like that (when Geo. P. Bent was making them, NOT the later Winter Co. Crowns). Incredible quality and attention to detail. The maker had even beautify carved their name on the top frame on the back of the piano in letters about 3 1/2" tall with a carved (routed) border. They used a lathe to cut very handsome handles. And but a beautiful natural finish on all the wood. Heck, the back of that piano looked better then the front of most pianos! Those were the 4-pedal pianos, #4 was for hammer-blocking practice mechanism. And that thing had the biggest, heaviest harp I've seen--and timber framing to match. It almost fell on me when I was taking it off the truck: I'd a been a goner, for sure! Anyway, it was a beauty. Unfortunately, it had lived in a garage for a couple of decades and the soundboard was really cracked up and the pin block was shot and the action parts were brittle and some of the carved wooden moldings were missing chunks and I was lazy and it was taking up a lot of room so I burned it. It made a glorious bonfire and the scouts enjoyed it, but I now wish I hadn't. I almost feel guilt. Alan R. Barnard Salem, MO -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org]On Behalf Of kennys@kennyguitars.com Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 7:54 PM To: Pianotech Subject: Re: A B Chase Upright I have an A. B. Chase upright in my shop right now. I think it's the most remarkable old upright I've ever worked on. Excellently built and in very good shape for a piano of its age. I didn't really want an old upright in my shop at the time, but this fellow calls up asking who would haul a piano to the dump. I just didn't have the heart to let that happen. Unfortunately, the hack had already cut off many of the treble strings. I'd like to rebuild this piano, but I'm left wondering how a technician can market an old upright that doesn't have "Steinway" on the fallboard. Colin Kenny ----- Original Message ----- From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com> To: <pianotech@ptg.org> Sent: Friday, May 02, 2003 9:19 PM Subject: A B Chase Upright > In the spirit of David Love's post on a nice-sounding piano, here is another. I inspected a 1912 A. B. Chase upright today ("is this piano worth tuning?"). It's overall condition for this old a pianos was about 96 percentile (obviously not saying a whole lot). It appeared to be quite the piano. It had an open pinblock with wooden top-bass string termination. It had four string sections. It did not have a tenor bridge, but the long bridge had absolutley NO hockey stick end. It had a vertically laminated long bridge. Amazingly, it was in relatively good shape - all keys straight as an arrow, clean action, robust-sounding bass - pretty amazing for a 91 year old gal. If I were looking for an upright to remanufacture, I would snap this one up real quick. > > Terry Farrell > > _______________________________________________ > pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives > _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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