Old pianos...

[iansinclair]

anybody else see this article?  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19706812

interesting...

[hfmadopter]

Not surprising though.

[49410enrique]

i saw a similar tv news story last week.

i think repurpose-ing the old grands and uprights would be a much better use than just throwing them away. i actually have plans to some day make one of these out of an old. shell. actually if i had the talent for it one could probably build a pretty successful buisness out of refinishing and selling these things.

[indianajo]

Saw it.  I don't think Goodwill or Salvation Army take old uprights, I never see them there. Just consoles and spinets.   Craigslist has 3 uprights a week here, mostly for hilarious prices. The Sohmer upright for $50 in a bad neighborhood is tempting me, though.  
I helped cut up a stupidly bad Winter spinet once, to fit in the trash.  Hammer shafts warped all over.  We put on safety glasses and took a body grinder to the strings, then to the steel plate.  After that, a few whaps with a sledge hammer - out the door and in the can.
I'm going to harvest an old pre-war upright sometime, they are the right sounding piano for Scott Joplin and Fats Waller.  I heard an academic do a Scott Joplin program on television on a college grand.  Was kind of sad really; he wasn't very strong or energetic either.  And what Marvin Hamlisch did to Scott Joplin was scandalous, in my opinion.  Stopping and starting, no drive at all.  My favorite from the the ragtime day is the film of Willie "the Lion" Smith playing Finger Buster. Hard driving ragtime.  

[ranniks]

My heart is bleeding reading that story.

Good Lord, I was having so much trouble finding an acoustic piano and here they throw them out by a dozen?

[crownrib]

If you search around on Craigslist, you find a good deal of free or cheap pianos, usually uprights, and a huge slew of pianos for sale.  Even on Ebay there are endless pianos for sale.  Over the last 5 years the piano sellers and shops have wrinkled up.  Seems almost no one plays or cherishes piano anymore, compared to last century.

There are multitudinous reasons: recession causing lack of income, causing moving and shifting of homes, causing people to concentrate on anything but music, all causing the glut of old and some newer pianos to go into the bin.

Back in the late-1800s through circa 2000 the piano's presence in a home displayed social status.  I am not sure that applies anymore.  The must-have furniture piece is now mostly a clunky instrument taking up space.  To me the greatest shame is that many many excellent instruments which should be worthy of repair and restoration are just destroyed, however there were plenty of mediocre and awful old pianos made in the golden days of piano.

[deighve]

I inherited a 1930 upright, and this piano sounds great probably because of its huge metal frame and matured sound board. I had it restored to almost original state. The external surface varnish has been applied by hand. It makes a sound that complements my 10-year old grand piano. But, altogether, I go for a new piano with a fresh sound.

[richard black]

If you've got an old piano and it still sounds great, it was probably always a good one and has been well looked after. Most of those pianos being thrown out were cheap and cheerful when they were new and after decades of neglect are simply not worth trying to restore even as a project.

[mateya323]

Wow, since I didn't have chance to play piano as a child (my family couldn't afford it) this article makes me feel angry. If they can't play piano why do they even buy it?? Also the people who buy pianos to their spoiled children who stop to play it after one year are so nutty. Some people I know only use their grand piano (!) as a decoration and nobody actually plays it.  There was also a grand piano near the entrance of some hotel and everyone could try and "play" it. Some of those old pianos still have very nice sound and could be used and actually given to music schools or to someone, who really wants to play it but can't afford it.

[hbofinger]

My mother in law just passed. I loved her dearly. She had a Steinert spinet. Really a gawd-awful thing. But I made sure it stayed in her apartment, and her husband (who is still alive) will hold on to it. The family was talking about donating it to a school or something. It would not have lasted long...

Frankly, I don't mind junkers going. The good instruments will still survive this. There was a whole lot of junk produced for many years.

A different example: one of the cars I drive is 24 years old, and is in the annals of one of the best cars ever built. I think it may never end up being junked, because even  though it is just a car, it has now gone through the dip in depreciating and is actually gaining value again (there is no rust as of date). However, I don't ever wish I'd worked hard in preserving my parent's VW Dasher, or my friend's Pinto.

I always thought mass produced pianos had no value upon rebuild. That included Japanese names such as Kawai and Yamaha. Yet now I own a rebuilt 1970 C7 Yamaha, and I have learned. I have owned, though, at least two (of my six pianos in my life) that I know would be better off being junked.

An economist by trade is speaking...

[Bob]

It's always amusing to watch the "vintage" (POS) pianos drop their price in classified or Craigslist until they're free. 

Those crappy ones can hurt a student's learning though.  Free might actually be negative when the student has a bad experience.

I wonder if high schools... Haha.. I guess they have shop classes much anymore.  I was wondering if they could turn them into shelves or art projects. 

I guess you could make Christmas ornaments out of the keys possibly. 

[the89thkey]

Old pianos are no good...period. Unless they are completely reconditioned (as many are).

[john90]

An incorrect generalisation like this is what lies behind that article. In wealthy areas near me, there are lots of quality old German pianos, played, but not abused, nice crisp actions, original strings, not rusted, some restrung, going for a song. Much nicer than new low end Chinese imports will ever be, and the likelyhood of getting your money back on sale.

Old pianos are no good...period. Unless they are completely reconditioned (as many are).

[withindale]

An incorrect generalisation like this is what lies behind that article. In wealthy areas near me, there are lots of quality old German pianos, played, but not abused, nice crisp actions, original strings, not rusted, some restrung, going for a song. Much nicer than new low end Chinese imports will ever be, and the likelyhood of getting your money back on sale.

Correct. Can be fantastic value but allow for a piano technician to bring them up to their best.

[iansinclair]

Old pianos are no good...period. Unless they are completely reconditioned (as many are).

Good heavens.  Do not make generalisations like this; they aren't very safe -- or helpful.  As an example, one of my own pianos is 114 years old.  It has been restrung, but that's all that's ever been done to it other than tuning and a little touchup regulating.  It still has all the power and feel of a new piano of the same (rather decent) qualilty.  My other two are a little younger -- 108 years old and a mere stripling of 82 -- and I would say the same of them.

Indeed, in the case of my 114 year old, which is the one I play daily, complete reconditiioning would involve replacing the action -- which would be, according to the maker (still in business)a disaster, and is NOT recommended unless something is actually irretrievably broken.

[pbryld]

My 1879's Bechstein B is definitely not heading for the dumpster.