Last article in NY Times series on building a "D"

[Cy Shuster]

This is the last article in the series (free registration required):

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/nyregion/02piano.html

Among other interesting details: this D was assigned to the concert
division, so it gets a "C" prefix: CD-60 ("D" for the model).  The serial
number is 565700.

"Like CD-60, a single Steinway can have as many as three sets of numbers.
The case number, a letter followed by four digits - K0862, for this piano -
is assigned when the rim is bent and is used to track the piano at the
factory. The letter changes at the beginning of the year. Last year was a K
year; this year, the case numbers begin with L's.

Steinway's serial numbers, on the other hand, are for finished pianos. They
continue a sequence going almost all the way back to the company's beginning
in 1853. The Steinway before the ampersand in Steinway & Sons, Henry
Engelhard Steinway, had finished 482 pianos before emigrating from Germany.
The first piano built here, No. 483, was displayed at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art for 11 years, until last May.

In its first 50 years, Steinway made 100,000 pianos (No. 100000 was
delivered to the White House in 1903; it is now at the Smithsonian
Institution, where it was recently restored). The next 35 years were
Steinway's busiest. It made 200,000 pianos. No. 300000, the Steinway that is
still in the East Room, was delivered in 1938.

Concert division pianos are given another two- or three-digit number, the
one preceded by a C. The second letter in the prefix refers to the model of
the piano - D for concert grands, B for smaller grands, V (as in vertical)
for uprights. Unlike the serial number, a concert division number is not
permanent. Concert division pianos are typically retired from the fleet
after five or six five years. When that happens, the concert division number
is taken off and the six-digit serial number is stenciled on again."

--Cy Shuster--
Rochester, MN