Oh yes, that's a significant factor. As we've discused here before, the UK piano industry continued making birdcage pianos well into the 1930s, and quite a number of them are still serviceable instruments, which have just been allowed to slip in pitch through many years of non-tuning, and tuners that don't bother to maintain pitch. A straight strung piano of 1900 might well be one of the cheapo horrid cottage industry pianos churned out by the thousands by the English piano trade in 1900, made down to a price for the domestic parlour, or it might be a fine quality solid instrument by one of the good makers, worth keeping and restoring (like those beloved of JD). If it's the former, the owner really shopuld question why he or she wants to keep a piano that is 108 years old, and that was garbage when it was brand new. Really not worth the skilled work of a good tuner to pitch-raise! Best wishes, David. " Last week I did such a pitch raise without any problems (in field service), but that piano was built 1935 and not 1900".
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