Erhard Piano 1925

[ely...@my-deja.com]

I'm thinking aboug buying a 1925 Erhard piano for $1100. Can someone
give me information about this piano? I couldn't see a whole lot on it
on the internet and my "how to buy a piano" book has nothing on it. I
did come across an article where a piano tech was trying to buy small
pins because he didn't have anything small enough to tune the piano. Is
this going to be a problem?

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Before you buy.

[Rick Clark]

ely...@my-deja.com wrote:

>I'm thinking aboug buying a 1925 Erhard piano for $1100. Can someone
>give me information about this piano? I couldn't see a whole lot on it
>on the internet and my "how to buy a piano" book has nothing on it. I
>did come across an article where a piano tech was trying to buy small
>pins because he didn't have anything small enough to tune the piano. Is
>this going to be a problem?

If you are sure this is an Erhard and not an Erard or Erhardt, it was
a label used on pianos sold out of Bloomingdales, NYC.

Though I have not seen an Erhard specifically, I have seen a number of
other labels sold by Bloomies, and they have all been the classic
"piano shaped objects". That is, they satisfied the desire of the
ladies of the period to appear "classy" by having a little grand in
the house, but the instruments themselves were so cheaply made that
they could essentially be considered disposable as opposed to
rebuildable. For $1100 you can't really expect much in the way of
function or servicability these days though. This is the absolute
bottom of the grand market, and piano-shaped-objects or total junkers
are what occupies this segment.

It is doubtful the pins will be so small that the tuner can't get a
tool to fit- though that does happen sometimes with European made
pianos (Erard is European), but there may be a number of other
difficulties with an old Bloomies piano given the poor quality and
age-related problems. I haven't seen one yet I could say was
functioning as a piano should function or would be worth spending the
money to get in shape. However, it may well be "tuneable" (or may not,
depending), if tuning is your only criterion.

RC