NA - Piano Buying

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Fearless Tower
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So, as we get ready to move into our new house next month....my wife announces that she wants to get a Baby Grand. I figure, we are a musically inclined family, we have two daughters who will probably want to learn and we will have the space in the new home, so maybe it isn't a bad idea.....then I start trying to look at piano prices.
:hairraise:

Normally, I'm the kind of guy who believes in buying quality.....but I'm not about to shell out for a Steinway that costs more than my friggin' airplane!:mad2::mad2:

:no:

Any piano experts here? Where does one start to look for a decent baby grand? What should one expect to pay for a decent, not necessarily high end baby grand? The web seems kind of sparce on this one....most of my searches so far lead me to ebay and craigslist and I have seen everything from $600 bucks to over $100k. Not sure that is the best route, but I need to get up to speed on piano buying before even starting to look there.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
 
Talk to your local piano tuner. He/she/it may have some leads.

Consider a pre-buy before you spend a significant amount of money. Some pianos have been neglected / abused enough that they can't be properly brought up to pitch.
 
If you want to stop in Philly you can have mine for free. I'm serious. Its not a baby grand its an upright but Since you are looking for a baby grand I'd suggest that local music teachers might have a good source. The big dealerships make me nervous, they seem like used car dealers although I'm sure their are reputable ones.

My best suggestion is to tap Ben's brain ( Spiderweb) on this board. Ben is a concert Cellest and music teacher located in I belive the Baltimore area. He'd have the best suggestions.
 
Karen has a friend who's family runs a piano biz. They have warehouses full of the things. I suggest that price may be significantly more negotiable than you think. And as Adam pointed out, most folks will be happy to watch you cart one away.

Ditto the piano tuner and/or local piano teachers, to find such deals.

We owned two uprights at one point. We were happy when one of them was just carted off.
 
Also if there are colleges nearby with music programs, the departments periodically refresh their pianos, and you can find good deals on the old ones.
 
I bought a baby grand and I got the lead from the local piano tuner. Not a bad source. Of course the piano he steered me towards needed some work!

: )

Not his fault really, I did tell him a price range and he delivered. I think we spent around 4K. Nice piano and just needed a couple keys redone. I'm happy with it and both my boys are learning now.
 
My wife is a very accomplished pianist. (Music minor in college) She has a Mason & Hamlin BB 7' baby grand which to my rotor and prop assailed ears sounds wonderful. We got it used for a little over 30k. Her input to your request was that unless you were sure you needed a baby grand, a good quality upright would work well for students, would fit in a bedroom and not be too expensive.

If you want to go the baby grand route, kiss that new engine good-bye!

Her suggestions: Kaiwa, Mason & Hamlin,Petrof, Sauter. Kaiwa being the most expensive of the group. Like an airplane, get an expert to assess the structure and string condition before buying. Tuning is not too expensive, but restringing an abused baby grand will really hurt the flying budget, and poorly maintained ones will not be true or stay in tune. Good Luck!!!
 
Fearless Tower said:
So, as we get ready to move into our new house next month....my wife announces that she wants to get a Baby Grand. I figure, we are a musically inclined family, we have two daughters who will probably want to learn and we will have the space in the new home, so maybe it isn't a bad idea.....then I start trying to look at piano prices.
:hairraise:

Normally, I'm the kind of guy who believes in buying quality.....but I'm not about to shell out for a Steinway that costs more than my friggin' airplane!:mad2::mad2:

:no:

Any piano experts here? Where does one start to look for a decent baby grand? What should one expect to pay for a decent, not necessarily high end baby grand? The web seems kind of sparce on this one....most of my searches so far lead me to ebay and craigslist and I have seen everything from $600 bucks to over $100k. Not sure that is the best route, but I need to get up to speed on piano buying before even starting to look there.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Click to expand...


yeah, I know a bit about pianos. I was first paid for a piano tuning back in 1974. Since my father rebuilt player pianos and was one of the very few in this area, I tended to tune players (darn few tuners know anything about players, never mind being able to fix them).

Anyway...

First, a baby grand wouldn't be my first choice of piano. In general, the shorter the strings and the smaller the sounding board, the lower quality tone and tuning possible from the piano (I can go into the physics of it if you like). The reason concert grands are 9+ feet long is to give the best quality sound. A good tall upright piano would be a better choice. (btw wrt Steinway prices - I had sticker shock/dismay when I found out their grands start at $50,000 and the uprights start at $20,000).

The longer the key (not just the visible part), the better the feel of the action. You want the lever point to be as far from the hand as possible so that the feel of pressing the key at the tail is reasonably close to the feel at the front of the key. Those short spinets have the keys so short that the lever point is about an inch from the end of the visible tail.

2nd the advice of getting help from your local tuner.

And definitely pay the tuner/rebuilder to look at any used piano you might be interested in buying.

my order of preference wrt piano:

real grand (e.g., about 6' or longer)
tall upright (older tall player pianos have longer keys, improving the feel of the action)
baby grand
digital keyboard (blech)
spinet (triple blech)

If you can find a rebuilt older piano, done by a quality rebuilder, it could be better than some of the new pianos and be less money.

another btw, a pretty case doesn't make the piano play any better or sound any better.
 
The problem here is you have a wife and kids. If you were single you could get a giant home theater instead. Perhaps a nice sound system and then you could just stick in a CD of piano music like I do. I love to listen to classical piano music, but have no clue how to make a piano go myself.

I would look at the cost of a good baby grand vs the cost of a divorce attorney, see which one is the most practical for your situation.....everyone is different.

Oohh.....you could dump the house, get a cool apartment, and a high end airplane.

See, it pays to go on the net looking for advise on pianos. :D

-john
 
I had a baby grand but it takes lots of room. Couldn't sell it and ended up giving it away to a charity. When we were looking for that one though we found several nice ones for around 4000. I would suggest not spending over that and maybe going to a area dealer and seeing if maybe you could find one you like with a rent to own option so that you could try it out with a fixed buyout. After it takes about half of the room for long enough your wife will probably come up with a different idea. I prefer the older uprights myself. Not much money and sound great. If your kids stuck with it I might consider a grand later but the key action is really nice on the old uprights. Not everyone who plays piano wants a Grand as I found out when I tried to sell it for a year. I would have taken about any offer as I needed the room it was hogging. Check out Craigslist also.
 
Thanks for the great input!

Only problem now is trying to figure out how best to relate this to my wife.....she'd probably think I was nuts for getting piano buying advice from a pilot forum!

Definitely will check out the local tuner advice.
 
I have a Yamaha DC5A (a little bigger than a baby) grand that I bought on Ebay from it's original owner. The C5 is an entirely nice piano and the addition of the Disklavier mechanism makes it really handy as an entertainment device (my wife who doesn't play sometimes loads up one of the disks and at Christmas time we'll often set it to playing a collection of old piano roll Christmas carols while we're eating)....

Higher end pianos are entirely like cars. I remember once "test driving" one at a Baldwin dealer and gettnig them to quote you a price is much like trying to get the Cadillac dealer to tell you what the real price of the car you're looking at. That being said, Pianos depreciate rapidly in price but they don't really "age" as fast as cars. I paid less than half what the going price for the new piano (admittedly I bought it from a musician who got a deal on it from Yamaha, his bio/pic is on their website), but it's was pretty much in the original condition.

For me, I do not regret my purchase for an instant. I've played a variety of console pianos (including the Baldwins which are very close in touch to the grands) and probably have the most extensive collection of sampled digital pianos available (using a streaming sampler called GIGASTUDIO I have everything from Yamaha's to Steinways of various vintages to Bosendorfers). I've got two friends who have Steinways (one modern one and one heavily restored one from a half century ago. They're nice, but I'm not that good a player that I it makes a difference.

My sister has a DC3mk4. This is a smaller piano and it is nice too (but frankly if I had the room the size hers is in, I'd have a DC7).
 
My buddy has one of those Yamahas, I don't know what it costs, but it sure sounds sweet.
 
We upgraded pianos about 5 years ago. We really wanted a grand piano, but there just not enough room in the old farm house. We bought an upright Yamaha fresh off of the brown market. Great pianos used lightly by a Japanese family. We learned a lot, it was like buying a car.
 
Buy a piano? I thought those things were free for the lifting. There are so many unused pianos in the world, shop well and you will be rewarded.
 
Old uprights are frequently available for moving them. Most are pretty horrendous and you get what you pay for. A lot of the consoles and smaller grands can be had for nothing and are still basket cases. However, every once and a while you get a reasonable deal that someone just wants to get rid of. Oddly enough, despite appearances, grand pianos are EASIER to move than uprights.
 
Oh, the old piano is out in the barn and free for the taking. To the right taker, I might just deliver that wonderful piano. Sometimes late at night I can hear the pack rats playing Earl Hines and Monk tunes from the house. Please take it away.
 
Fearless Tower said:
So, as we get ready to move into our new house next month....my wife announces that she wants to get a Baby Grand. I figure, we are a musically inclined family, we have two daughters who will probably want to learn and we will have the space in the new home, so maybe it isn't a bad idea.....then I start trying to look at piano prices.
:hairraise:

Normally, I'm the kind of guy who believes in buying quality.....but I'm not about to shell out for a Steinway that costs more than my friggin' airplane!:mad2::mad2:

:no:

Any piano experts here? Where does one start to look for a decent baby grand? What should one expect to pay for a decent, not necessarily high end baby grand? The web seems kind of sparce on this one....most of my searches so far lead me to ebay and craigslist and I have seen everything from $600 bucks to over $100k. Not sure that is the best route, but I need to get up to speed on piano buying before even starting to look there.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Click to expand...

Did I see on another post that you're moving to the DC area? If so, I HIGHLY recommend going to Rick Jones Pianos. I've been playing all my life (well, most of it...13 years ish) and they're a great place. They have tons of used pianos in fantastic shape that you can go try out, and they have the best warantee in the business (10 years--better than buying new). They have the less expensive baby grands (on the order of 5k new, built in China, though I don't recommend those) all the way up to restored Steinways. We bought a used 5'10" Kawai for around 10k on sale. Sounds great. Definitely wait for their sales, though--they have them every once in a while.

Check them out here: http://www.rickjonespianos.com/
 
Unless you can get a grand of over about 6' a quality upright will give better sound.

The Korean uprights that sold at Costco sound pretty good, although no upright has an action as good as a good grand. Take some accomplished pianist with you to try out pianos. Remember you can always tone down a brilliant piano, but rarely brighten up a dull tone.

Vladimir Horowitz played on a 9' Steinway for a reason.
 
I saw a Steinway D for $55 on the Nova craigslist yesterday. Alas, when I checked closer, it was really $55,000 they wanted (still a bargain, actually).

My wife laments over large things that follow me home, but even she likes the piano.
 
kgruber said:
Remember you can always tone down a brilliant piano, but rarely brighten up a dull tone.
Click to expand...

small comment: it depends on why the tone is dull. Badly worn hammers can be replaced. A loose bridge can be secured.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Thanks for the great input!

Only problem now is trying to figure out how best to relate this to my wife.....she'd probably think I was nuts for getting piano buying advice from a pilot forum!

Definitely will check out the local tuner advice.
Click to expand...
Just tell her that all pilots (except you, of course) are all rich effetes.
 
jpower said:
Did I see on another post that you're moving to the DC area? If so, I HIGHLY recommend going to Rick Jones Pianos. I've been playing all my life (well, most of it...13 years ish) and they're a great place. They have tons of used pianos in fantastic shape that you can go try out, and they have the best warantee in the business (10 years--better than buying new). They have the less expensive baby grands (on the order of 5k new, built in China, though I don't recommend those) all the way up to restored Steinways. We bought a used 5'10" Kawai for around 10k on sale. Sounds great. Definitely wait for their sales, though--they have them every once in a while.

Check them out here: http://www.rickjonespianos.com/
Click to expand...
No, moving to Norfolk, VA, but DC is within reason. Thanks for the link!
 
One thing you can check is with the local university music departments. They periodically replace the pianos in the department, usually this is handled by whatever music dealer they are getting their new ones (either because the dealer took them in trade or they were leased to begin with). I get junk mail periodically on these sales.
 
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