It's too bad that the work invested wouldn't bring the investment value! $500-$1,000 invested in an old upright still would only be worth $300-500.(rarely more) Many old uprights are/were great instruments and I tell customers that the original makers, having been long gone by now, would be impressed that they're still in service! I don't know where to draw the "line" on these old things....I have been offered old uprights for donation to the School of Music, but I respectfully decline their generous offer. As beautiful as they appear on the outside, they still will never be able to handle the 15 hours/day of abuse....for the beginning student, I hope y'all take that into consideration whether or not it will perform. Remember that the original price of these PSO's were probably less than $500. It's a fine line where to "draw the line" on these old beauties, but sometimes you have to. Where I was on Whidbey Island, WA, there were several per week that were Grandma's wedding present and the like....I could see the tears well up in their eyes when I would have to say that the piano was either unfixable, or fixable for substantial investments..Others I would state that they "might" hold a tune, fix a broken string, or whatever, collect my fee and move on. The line is very fine indeed! I advise all to walk carefully on the old beauties...they were, of course at one time, very nice pianos! Paul Michael Magness <IFixPianos at yahoo.com> Sent by: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org 01/31/2009 11:07 AM Please respond to pianotech at ptg.org To pianotech at ptg.org, rnossaman at cox.net cc Subject Re: [pianotech] very old pianos On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote: I have read, with strong interest, the series of articles in the recent Journals about restringing and replacing pinblocks in old uprights. Most of these are near, if not more than, 100 years old, why would we want to refuse to work on them? Mike Boy, I wish we could finally get this straightened out just once before I die. There's a vast difference between doing field patch up on an ancient crappie shelter candidate and rebuilding the old beater. Both are being "worked" on, but one will have something to show for the money and effort and the other won't. Ron N I thought I covered the whole spectrum in my complete message; [snip]Yes I do, occasionally but not sight unseen. I charge an estimate fee for my time, sometimes I have to tell them what they have is firewood masquerading as a piano. Other times I tell them what repairs it needs then what we HAVE to do to make it operational enough for their beginner to start lessons. Mike -- I intend to live forever. So far, so good. Steven Wright Michael Magness Magness Piano Service 608-786-4404 www.IFixPianos.com email mike at ifixpianos.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090131/1cd09c4e/attachment-0001.html>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC