How NOT to Sell A Piano

This has to be absolutely the worst auction ad I've ever seen!

Here is the auction script as is – with my comments. I did not know this make of piano so I did a quick online search for the brand and typical pictures of models.

“Red Wood Coloured [Brand Name] Upright Piano & Stool 22 Years Old (very unlikely – the company ceased production 32 years ago)
Lovely Sound
Starting bid: £5000 (yes – five thousand pounds!)
Item location: [About as far west as you can get in England], United Kingdom
Seller's feedback : 1617 (so not a newbie then)

No pictures – unless you count the picture of the wallpaper that they uploaded as a placeholder.

"This upright piano was given to me when I was 8 and has served me well. It has a lovely sound (will try and find a way of uploading an mp3). The make is [Brand Name] and it was purchased from [a piano store] in London". (If these pianos were in production today they would probably be at the lowest end of the market and retail at less than £3000 new, inc VAT)
"I'm not sure what wood it is made from but it is an auburn red colour and has a very shiny gloss on top "(probably MDF veneered in mahogany and then polyestered).

"It is in good condition considering its age. There is the odd nick in the wood but I will add photos of these. It will need tuning as it hasn't been tuned for probably at least 12 years (obviously well cared for, then) (so plays quite well considering). It also has not been used for the past 6 years (except as a bookshelf) (just a handful of times since we had it transferred to our house from my parents). I can only comment on cosmetic damage as I know nothing about pianos except for how to play them so if there were anything else wrong with it I wouldn't know so please bear this in mind before choosing to bid. However, it appears to play like a normal piano aside from needing a tune."
 (OK, so we have established it’s older than he claims – but that may because he thought it was new when he was given it. And it’s not top-drawer either.)

"I have no idea on piano values (ain't that the truth!) but we are selling this piano in order to pay our student overdraft and car repair debts. We would be happy to keep the piano otherwise and so will only accept the full asking price."
(So, a piano that would have retailed for around £1000 tops in 1980 is now being offered for five times as much because the seller has debts!  I know that some things increase in value over time, but not a cheap southern-hemisphere built piano.)

[It gets better :) ]

"Collection only from the [stated] area of Devon.
Buyer will need to collect the item in person (even if this means attending while a courier does the actual work) as we will not be held responsible for any damage made by the courier."
(I have never, ever seen a seller attach such a condition to a sale before this.  Not only does he want more than 10 times what the piano is actually worth but you've got to get yourself to a dead-end place in the West Country to supervise the collection.  I know of a couple of piano removals companies who would laugh at you if you told them that’s what had to happen – and then refuse the job on the grounds it casts aspersions on their professionalism.  I definitely don’t know of any courier company that would move a piano – not even across the room!)

"I will also only accept payment by cleared cash or CHAPS (buyer pays the fee) and we both go to the bank to deposit it in my account. No Paypal or cheques or any other form of payment will be accepted. "
(Ah, now we know why you have to be there when the piano is collected!  Even if you turn up with five grand in pound notes, he wants you to act as a bodyguard while he banks it, presumably on the grounds that, if he just lets you take the piano after handing over the cash, you’d then try and mug him to get your money back as well.  The auction site would also be interested to see that, despite their insistence everyone must allow payments via their online payment gateway (cos they make more money that way), he has refused to accept their preferred payment method.  That is grounds for them cancelling his auction.)

"Buyer must make contact within 24 hours and arrange a payment and collection time within the following 7 days. Collection can only take place once my bank has confirmed the payment has cleared completely. Sorry to be so strict but this is just a security issue."
(And so, even though you are busy earning enough to pay for this grossly overpriced instrument as well as keeping a roof over your family’s head, taking the kids to football practice etc. etc. you have to drop everything you’re doing, get a piano removal company to make a special trip for you (you’d be exceptionally lucky to get a part-load deal at such short notice), go to the bank for the cash (Why would you send it electronically to him? He doesn’t trust you at all, and you’ve a) got to pay the fees and b) got to be there when the piano is collected anyway.), arrange time off work at short notice, travel halfway across the country (unless you happen to live in Devon), go with him to his bank and wait while he has the cashier confirm that you didn’t just run all those fifties off on your laser printer, and then he’ll let the removal company pick up the piano for you.  As I write this, there are 642 upright pianos for sale on eBay.  Why would you bother with this one?)

I do believe this piano is still for sale ;)

Woodworm, Moth, Minor Repairs & More - Sometimes There's a Reason The Piano Is Cheap!

Woodworm in the piano

Old pianos, like antique furniture, often have woodworm holes, especially in the baseboard of uprights and the key-bed and frame of grand pianos.  If the piano is sufficiently old it would be surprising if it didn't have woodworm.  It’s not the end of the world as long as the woodworm has been treated and it hasn't weakened the structure.
We occasionally have pianos with woodworm holes which we always re-treat just in case.

We did, however, once acquire a lovely quartered walnut Erard grand piano from a piano technician who had bought it to rebuild for himself and then had a change of circumstance.  We collected the instrument and set it up to evaluate it.  As we pulled the action out the bass hammers and shanks practically disappeared in a cloud of wood dust – not only did it have rampant live woodworm, but they’d been chewing their way through most of the action for months.

The instrument was very quickly removed, as live woodworm can spread.
Pianos acquire woodworm from standing on floorboards that have become infested (possibly from an even older family piece of furniture) and the insects just move from one area to another.
So, ask a seller if that old instrument you are considering has had wood worm – and if it’s been treated.

Moth in a used piano

Pianos that are regularly played do not harbour moth – the noise and vibrations disturb them.  Pianos that have been left in storage or are just used as a place to put the photo frames on are far more susceptible to infestation.
If the fall (the part covering the keys) is lifted you can often see the moths fleeing into the darkness of the interior.  Likewise, if you remove the top door you will see movement as the winged insects fly away from the light.  What you won’t see unless you start removing the keys is the grubs munching away at the felts underneath.  They will also eat the hammers and dampers away.
Moth can be dealt with by spraying a suitable insecticide but the damaged components will probably need replacing unless you have caught the infestation very early.
If you see flying moths, then it’s too late – they got to be moths by eating the piano felts!

If you import a piano with moth into your home and don’t treat it, pretty soon all your cashmere sweaters will resemble antique lace – it’s not just piano felt that they eat!

Minor Repairs needed to the piano

Very often a piano will be offered with non-working parts, which invariably are ‘easy to fix’.  If the fix is easy then why did the seller not get it fixed to improve the selling prospects of their instrument?

The buyer in the Cautionary Tale knew that the piano had a non-working middle C key which was ‘easy to fix’.  It was easy to fix – it took my technician about 10 minutes to sort it out and get it working properly.

Unfortunately for the unlucky buyer (as if he didn't have enough problems with the piano) it took about two days to strip down the piano sufficiently to remove the action to get to the key (the piano was an old-fashioned player grand that uses paper rolls to play the instrument and is a lot more complex than an ordinary piano).  If that had been the only problem with the piano it would still have cost him several hundred pounds just to get the simple problem fixed and make the piano playable.

Just re-polishing a piano can cost a thousand pounds plus, depending on the size of the piano.  If you are not too worried about the appearance (and remember it won’t sound any better or play any better even if the outside is perfect) then a few marks and dings may be worth living with.  With older French polished pianos a good clean with white spirit and re waxing can improve the cabinet with no major cash outlay – just a lot of elbow grease.

Older than it looks - the ageless piano

One thing to watch out for is a piano that is older than it looks.  It was common in the 60’s and 70’s to restyle old 20’s and 30’s pianos to make them look more modern.

Pianos from the early 1900’s are usually quite tall, with panels in both the top and bottom door, sometimes with marquetry inlays.  Sometimes they would have had candle sconces as well.
In order to disguise the piano’s age the top (and sometimes bottom) door was taken off, the sides of the piano reshaped to the more modern sloping design, the panels removed and replaced with a single sheet of plywood and veneer and the door(s) refitted.  This gave the piano a more modern outline and made it more saleable.  There are many of these old pianos still around and some will still be worth buying.  But they are older than they appear.

One way to properly date a piano is by finding the serial number, which would have been on most pianos – although it sometimes disappears during restoration, or is in a less conspicuous place such as behind the action on the soundboard or behind the bottom door.

Is The Piano Overstrung and Underdamped?

Overstrung / Straight-Strung / Overdamped / Underdamped?

These baffling words are just a description of the configuration of a piano and many people use them without actually knowing what they mean and how the configuration affects the playing and sound of a second-hand piano.

The modern configuration of an upright piano is overstrung (the strings form an X shape when you look at them) and underdamped (you can see the hammers when you look in the top of the piano and the dampers touch the strings below where the hammers strike) as shown in this picture:

There is a distinct break in the stringing and you can see the hammers and the dampers.

This configuration has two advantages – by crossing the bass strings over the treble strings you get longer bass strings and therefore a purer tone (short bass strings sound ‘tubby’ or dull), and by having the dampers under the hammers you get a more efficient cut-off of the sound when they fall back onto the strings.

Older pianos can also have this configuration, or they can be overstrung and overdamped as shown here:

Here you can see the break in the stringing, but the hammers are hidden by the dampers.

or straight strung and underdamped as here:

Here you see there is no break in the stringing, but the hammers are visible.

 or straight strung and overdamped, which is the earliest configuration as here:

No break in the stringing and the hammers are hidden.

If the piano is tall then the string configuration is less important as the bass strings will be long anyway. Shorter pianos and spinets are always overstrung as they only started to be mass-produced when overstringing was developed.

Grand pianos will be either overstrung (modern configuration) as on this Bechstein Model C grand piano:

This 7ft 8in Bechstein Model C grand piano has the bass strings crossed over the treble strings.

or straight-strung (early configuration) shown here on an 1880's Broadwood grand piano:

All the strings on this antique Broadwood grand piano are parallel.

If you are buying your first piano for a learner then don’t let the configuration put you off an instrument that you like – remember that the older pianos were state-of-the-art when they were built and in some cases cost more than the house they were put into!

In my next post I'll cover other things to look out for when you're considering buying a used piano.

Buying A Piano - A Cautionary Tale

An acquaintance of mine bought a second-hand piano through an online auction site two years ago, relying on the description and photographs alone.  The pictures made the finish look very good, and the description made certain claims about the restoration work that the seller believed had been done.  The piano was 200 miles away.

Caught up in the bidding frenzy, my friend bid several thousand for this piano, and won it.  We were dispatched to collect it and bring it to my showroom to check it over prior to delivering it to his home.
The minute I saw it I knew he’d hate it – the cabinet was not a nice French polished mahogany as he’d expected, it was a brush-varnished toffee-apple finish that practically obscured all the wood’s grain.  The only close-up picture of the finish concentrated on a small area that had been redone in a much lighter tone which he thought was representative of the whole piano.

Further examination revealed that the piano had not had any of the restoration work done claimed in the auction description.  The piano was clearly not worth even a third of what he bid and we prepared a report to that effect for him.

He contacted the seller who was adamant that the piano was ‘as described’ and would not refund him, nor take the piano back.  So he appealed to the online payment services company associated with the auction website – as that was how he’d paid for the purchase.

At first they denied his claim based on the fact he had collected the piano ‘in person’ and had not used an approved trackable carrier.  Since Royal Mail (or any of the company-approved courier companies) don’t remove pianos that argument seemed a bit unfair – what they were saying was that any purchase collected in person, or too heavy for their approved couriers was not covered by the buyer protection that the payment company offered – even though every page on the auction site screamed several times ‘Pay with [payment services company] – you are covered by buyer protection’.

However, a little research on the auction website turned up a page which stated unequivocally that ‘Collection in Person’ was covered by buyer protection.  Unfortunately, this did little to sway the payment services company, who still refused to compensate my friend despite the piano being ‘not as described’.
The claim was all done by email – there was no other way to make a claim under this buyer protection scheme – and each time a message was sent the reply was from a different person.  After several months with no resolution, my friend then turned to the Financial Services Ombudsman as the payment services company is registered as a financial institution and comes under his purview.  Several more months went by as the FSO tried to get a suitable response from them and eventually they grudgingly offered my friend about two-thirds of his money back.

Since, by this time, my friend had other pressing family problems to cope with and wasn't in a position to try and fight them any further he accepted their offer.
This left him with a used piano that had cost him around £1,500 (after the refund) but he had to spend somewhere in the region of £5,000 to get the instrument into the condition the thought it was in when he was bidding.

Now I know this story makes the seller out to be the black sheep, but I don’t think that is the case.  The family had bought the piano from a dealer some years previously for a substantial consideration and had been given verbal assurances regarding the condition of the instrument. They repeated these assurances in their auction description as they had no reason to doubt them, the dealer in question having a certain standing in the trade.
It was immediately obvious to my technician when he examined the piano that these claims were spurious, but the seller was adamant that the work had been done because that’s what they were told.

Admittedly, the pictures were a little misleading – they’d been taken several months earlier when the seller lived at a different address and showed the piano in their living room whereas it was, in fact in their garage, a point they failed to mention.  And they knew that the finish of the piano was not represented by the close-up picture they supplied.

The payment services company, however, comes out of this in a very poor light.  They attempted to avoid their liabilities at every turn even when faced with the clear evidence from their own website (the auction website owns the payment services company) and it was only the intervention of the FSO that got my friend any restitution.

And so the moral of this story is: if you want to bid on a piano in an online auction, be sure of what you are buying.

If possible, look for instruments within visiting distance, and take a technician with you.  If you want to view an instrument and the seller is reluctant to allow it – ‘it’s in storage’, ‘it’s at my Mum’s/a friend’s’ or any other excuse – give it a miss.

An auction bid is a legally binding offer to purchase and if you don’t complete the seller can (and probably will) report you to the auction company which could affect your account’s standing, and in theory the seller can pursue you through the courts for their money.

If you are organising a third party to collect the instrument on your behalf you will have to pay for your purchase before you see it and trying to get your money back later can be very stressful as my friend discovered.

Auctions are a bit like buses – there’s always another one.

Tips For Buying A Used Piano

When you buy a piano privately, you are going to get all the dirt and dust that a typical second-hand piano accumulates in its lifetime – no-one cleans out a piano when they are going to sell it.  You will also have to pay for removal of the piano as well as a tuning and possible remedial work as well.

This is true for any private sale whether from a friend or relative, a classified advertisement in the local paper or online, an auction house or on an online auction site.

Buying from a friend or relative

Unless your friend or relative is a piano technician, assume they know as much about pianos as you do.

We are regularly offered pianos ‘in perfect condition’ which the vendor then qualifies by admitting the instrument has been in the garage for at least five years, hasn't been tuned since the old King died, has a missing castor, a broken pedal, several non-working keys, some of the ivory missing, oh yes, ‘and my son painted it purple when he was respraying his bike’!  But otherwise it’s perfect.  And valuable because it’s old.

Sadly, most of these pianos have no value except to the local Rotary Club around November 5th.

If you are considering buying or accepting a piano from a friend or relative it might be politic to suggest they offer the instrument to a local piano retailer first to see if the instrument has any value.  (I know I shall be castigated in the trade for that suggestion as most retailers will not take the time to explain why an instrument is has little or no value, but it is something I do.)

And before you make a decision to buy or accept the piano spend a little money and have a piano technician look at it first and check the tuning pins, action and other working parts.  We've taken a couple of pianos in part-exchange with missing strings where a tuner broke one or two and never replaced them.  The owner hadn't noticed.  Not a problem for us, but it’s not an expense you want to inherit if you can avoid it.

A chap arrived at our showroom a couple of days ago with the action from his newly-gifted piano in the back of his car.  He wanted to know how much it would cost to repair.  We looked at the five broken hammer shanks (the hammers had long gone missing), the flanges that were coming unstuck again (we could see the screws where someone had tried a repair in the past and had split the wood in the process), the broken springs and all the rest and gently told the man that he’d be wasting any money he spent on the piano.  I’m sure his friend meant well when he gifted the piano, but I also feel it was a convenient way to dispose of an instrument no-one would buy and he wasn't prepared to pay for its removal or disposal.

We once acquired a fairly new white grand piano that had been in a garage for about a year.  When we pulled the action out every single one of the hammers had mice teeth marks and the action was covered in white fluff where the rodents had systematically chewed the felt away.  We had to replace all the hammers – and vacuum all the mice droppings out from under the keys!

If you can play, then make sure you try the piano as well.

Buying from a classified advertisement

Since it has now become almost impossible to offload unwanted pianos on the local church, school or old peoples’ home (because they all have digital instruments these days) many people resort to ads in local papers, supermarkets or online.

The same caveats apply to these pianos as to the ones offered by friends or relatives especially as sometimes people have ‘inherited’ a piano with the house they've just bought as the previous owners left it behind because they didn't want it!  Try the piano, have a technician check it out and give you a report on its current condition and the cost of getting it into good playing condition.

There are two websites that I know of – craigslist.com and gumtree.com – that offer goods for sale from both private sellers and traders in the form of classified ads.
All that I stated about buying from an online auction site applies to these sites, the only difference being that goods are offered for a fixed price rather than on auction.  eBay owns Gumtree, by the way.

Buying from an auction house

If a piano is in a general furniture sale at an auction house it’s possibly come from an estate and is being sold as part of a house clearance.  If it was a top quality instrument it probably would have been offered to a specialist auction house or directly to a dealer as house clearance companies tend to do that.  Private sellers may not bother, although we do get calls asking about the value of estate pianos.  So, the chance of a piano in auction being a ‘find’ is unlikely but you may find something that would suit your purpose even if it isn’t the finest example of the piano makers’ art.

Once again pay a technician to check over your prospective purchase before you get carried away in the bidding and be guided by him as to the price you should pay.  Don’t forget that there is a buyers’ premium on auction bids which can add up to a further 25% to the bid price.  There is no warranty of any kind attached to items sold at auction, and auctioneers do not accept ‘buyer’s remorse’ as a reason to refund your money should the instrument not turn out to be what you expected.
And you have to pay for removal.

We had a client (who had bought from us in the past) who was looking for a specific make of piano and thought he could get a better deal by buying at auction than from us.  He paid a couple of thousand (plus premium and transport) for a piano which we were then asked to go and fix!  It cost nearly another thousand to get the piano up and running, but it’s not a good example of the make – which is why I’m not naming it!  He thought he knew about pianos and couldn't make a mistake by buying this particular brand.  Unfortunately, even with the best makes, pianos that are 100 years old or more cannot be assumed to be as robust as they once were and he ended up with one that we certainly wouldn't have advised he bid on.

Where To Buy A Used Piano - The Retail Store

The first thing you have to know is that every bricks and mortar piano retailer in the UK and Europe has to charge VAT – currently 20% in the UK – which makes a retail purchase more expensive than a private purchase – unfortunately for us retailers!  The US equivalent is Sales Tax, which varies from state to state, but still increases the price.

However, you often get something extra for that government tax we are all forced to pay – in our showroom we clean, recondition and repair all our pianos (as needed), regulate the action (i.e. make it play nicely and evenly), tune every piano and all have warranties of between one and five years depending on the age/quality/price.

Not all retailers do all or any of this so it’s worth asking if these things have been done if you are considering buying a pre-owned piano from a piano or general music shop.  (If you’re buying from a charity shop / goodwill store or a general second-hand furniture shop then you can be sure none of this will have been done.)

Does the piano actually work?

My technician tells the story of a chap who, having bought a piano from a second-hand shop, asked him and a tuner to come round and get it working.  When they opened up the piano the action – hammers, dampers and all the other workings between the keys and the strings – was completely missing.  How the shop owner had convinced the buyer that the piano was repairable is beyond me!

What else are you buying with the piano?

If the piano is anything more than a few years old it will need some looking at – if only to clean out the cat hairs, coins, pencils and other detritus from under the keyboard!  We have seen all sorts of stuff – guitar plectrums seem to be common for some reason – inside a piano.
Not to mention the years of dust and dirt under the keys of an old piano, sometimes so thick it looks like flooring underfelt and completely obscures the felts of the piano itself.  Would you really want someone else’s pet’s hair, dirt, rubbish and skin flakes in your house, especially if you are prone to allergies?

I have known of dealers who simply give the cabinet a quick wipe over with a cloth to get rid of the dust, polish the brass and then present the piano for sale.  One easy way to check if the piano has been properly cleaned is to look inside and see if the cobwebs are still there!

Check the price

Some dealers (including us) include a stool, local ground floor delivery and a complimentary tuning as part of the price.  Some don’t.  I have seen online retailers advertising pianos at the full manufacturer recommended price plus extra for a stool and then adding anything up to £200/$300 for delivery if you want to specify a day and time.  So what seemed to be a good buy suddenly costs nearly 10-20% more.

A major advantage of buying from a reputable retailer is the warranty.  In the unlikely event of a problem with the piano the shop will fix it.

In my next post I'll be looking at buying a piano privately: from friends & relatives, local auction houses or ads in newspapers.

How To Buy A Good Used Piano

Today I thought I'd write a short piece on the pitfalls of buying a piano online - especially if it's too far away to be able to actually see it and try it before you buy.

If I exclude dealers who advertise online (and I'm one of them, although I don't offer pianos on eBay or on classified ad sites) the majority of pianos you will see being sold online have probably already been rejected by a dealer or two. The current owner doesn't want to see the piano destroyed or doesn't want to pay to have it scrapped so they try to sell it - or even give it away - to keep their costs down.

There is also the perception that an old piano = a valuable antique. Sadly, this isn't so - unless the piano actually plays and will hold a tuning - an old piano = a piano-shaped ornament only good as a photograph shelf.

What to look for when you buy a used piano

Rather like estate agents, private sellers of pianos will present their instrument in its best light, emphasising the good points and ignoring or glossing over the bad ones, often because they don’t know their piano has any bad points.

A few months ago I browsed through the listings on the largest online auction site to find some examples of what to look out for in descriptions and pictures.

These are typical:

In one auction there was a picture of what appeared to be a well-kept old piano, but I could see it was in the kitchen, so it will have been exposed to high temperatures and humidity levels – just right for growing mould on the internal components as well as damaging the wrest plank and sound board.  (Also look out for radiators in the vicinity of the piano being sold – this will give rise to temperature fluctuations which you wouldn't like and nor will the piano.)

In another auction a piano was being sold with a large split in the fall (the part that covers the keys) – how did it get there?  What happened to the piano to cause damage to this part?  An impact that catastrophic may well have damaged other parts

A third piano was being sold as the product of a certain manufacturer – in fact the name on it is the dealer who originally retailed it; it was a ‘no-name’ brand that the dealer sold as the ‘house’ piano – like the house wine in pubs and restaurants.

A fourth one was being sold with a provenance of having been in a prominent local theatre.  There will be no hard evidence to back this up, of course – just ‘my great-aunt remembers playing this when it was at the end of the pier / in the concert hall / owned by such and such celebrity or concert pianist’ etc.

Another one was being sold by an upfront seller at least, who admitted they bought it from a house clearance, hadn't had it tuned (and didn't mind and couldn't tell that it needed tuning), mentioned the chipped pedals and chipped keys, the note that didn't work and the castor that went missing during their last house move.  At least you’d know what you were buying with this one!

The last I will mention is typical of the sort of description you see in auctions. (I have copied the description exactly as given by the seller:):

• “Normell London, Antique Upright Piano
• Working but needs attention
• Antique Normelle of London Vintage Upright Piano
• Still in working order. All the keys work. Has music stand and foot pedals. It has been in our family since the 1940's and was second hand before that so dont know how old it is.
• Sadly for about 15 years or so it has sat in the garage doing nothing. The material on the back of the piano is torn from disintigration whilst stored. 
• I am not a musician but my son plays the guitar and has had a go at the piano. He says it obviously needs retuning. There is also a key that has the white ivory half missing as shown in the photo.
• This would make a great restoration project as once cleaned up it really is a beautiful item.
• This is now looking for a home …”

The pictures to accompany this listing show a black piano that is grey with dust, the backlining hanging in shreds, and a close-up of a missing section of ivory from one of the keys. The piano was being offered at a starting bid of £40 – collect it yourself.

 [I would like to state here that I am not having a go at the seller – I believe they are honest (they have 100% feedback on nearly 300 transactions) and have described their family heirloom as the desirable object they believe it to be, albeit in need of ‘attention’.]

Analysis:

First of all, Normelles were considered to be very poor quality even when new – they built pianos for the masses – what we refer to as ‘Woolworth’or 'Walmart' pianos.  Cheaply built, cheaply sold and not meant to last 80 or more years.  We would not take this piano if you were giving it away and including delivery and dinner.

Secondly, just to be pedantic, it can’t be both vintage and antique – but these are buzzwords on eBay so people use them.  Strictly speaking I’d say it was vintage, although we don’t use that term with our instruments.

 ‘Still in working order. All the keys work.’  What that means is that their son has pressed all the keys down and got a sound out of each one.  It doesn't mean it’s playable.  Having been in a garage for 15 years I’d bet money it’s full of dirt and dust and God knows what else (did I tell you we once found a dead budgie inside a piano?  Not to mention moth, woodworm, mice carcases, spiders…).  And as it’s been in the family since World War II and there’s no mention of any work being done on it I’d guess it needs a full professional overhaul, never mind a tuning.  And I’d also bet the missing ivory is under the keys – they often are.  However, the chances are that all the ivory is loose – damp causes the old glue to weaken and once one falls off the others tend to follow. 

There is no mention of the configuration of the piano (because the seller doesn't know anything about pianos) nor even a picture of it with both the top and bottom doors removed so you could see for yourself.

They make a point of mentioning the backlining, probably because it’s obvious, but this is the least of this piano’s problems, is easily fixed (or just rip out what’s left of the fabric and do without – modern pianos don’t have a backlining these days).

 ‘This would make a great restoration project…’ a trigger phrase designed to encourage you to believe that with a bit of dusting and vacuuming the piano could look and play like a Steinway.

Never going to happen. 

If you threw $20,000 at this piano it still wouldn't look or sound like a Steinway. 

But it’s cheap, and maybe with a clean-up and a tuning…. 

Please don’t waste your money on any instrument advertised like this.  If the piano had any real value it would not be on eBay in this sorry state.

 [By sheer coincidence I found another Normelle for sale on eBay starting at £19.99:

 “Upright PIANO by NORMELLE

This was in my flat when I moved in - so just want rid!! It is by no means in good condition and could do with a lot of TLC!! DEFINITELY a REFURB PROJECT!! For collection only from ……. and CASH ON COLLECTION!! - any questions please message”

The single accompanying photograph shows the inside of a large black piano which is obviously straight-strung and overdamped.  The words ‘barge pole’ and ‘don’t touch’ come to mind.]

In my next post I'll be looking at buying a used piano from a dealer or retail store.