Werner of Chicago Upright Piano
Mark Tukman
We have a Werner Upright piano with all hammers and pads. Needs
tuning and refinishing. We don't know much about pianos, and wanted
to know what the vintage of this instrument might be.
the numbers on it are:
159934: stamped inside metal plate, probably the serial number
Somebody ditched this piano on their way out of town and we are
interested in "recycling" it or even keeping it for ourselves.
Does anyone know how much something like this is worth.
mvan...@worldaccess.nl
Aan 15-08-96 5:46, in bericht <32129D...@acpub.duke.edu>, Mark Tukman <tuk...@acpub.duke.edu>
schreef:
> We have a Werner Upright piano with all hammers and pads. Needs
> tuning and refinishing. We don't know much about pianos, and wanted
> to know what the vintage of this instrument might be.
>
> the numbers on it are:
>
> 159934: stamped inside metal plate, probably the serial number
In Pierce Piano Atlas 9th edition I find : ą1921
> Somebody ditched this piano on their way out of town and we are
> interested in "recycling" it or even keeping it for ourselves.
>
> Does anyone know how much something like this is worth.
Need more details, like :condition of the soundboard, strings, hammers, damper, rest of the action,
keys and are tuning pins lose? Is the plate broken or not?
The costs can vary between Dfl. 1000 and 12000 (1 Dfl. = ą 0.7 US$)
--
Michiel van Loon
mvan...@worldaccess.nl
tel/fax +31 (0)522 255160
Meppel
The Netherlands
Les Smith
Mark Tukman (tuk...@acpub.duke.edu) wrote:
: We have a Werner Upright piano with all hammers and pads. Needs
: to know what the vintage of this instrument might be.
: the numbers on it are:
: 159934: stamped inside metal plate, probably the serial number
: Somebody ditched this piano on their way out of town and we are
: interested in "recycling" it or even keeping it for ourselves.
: Does anyone know how much something like this is worth.
You didn't say whether this is a player piano, or not, so I'm assuming
that it's not, or that the player mechanism was removed before you
acquired it. Your piano was made in 1921. By that time the company was
owned by the Otto Schulz Company, also of Chicago. (Note that there is
no "t" in Schulz.) Schulz is best known for their player pianos. Unlike
most other companies, they built their own player mechanisms as well.
The Schulz player mechanism is fairly rare and is considerably more
difficult to rebuild than most other players because of the unique de-
sign of the "pouches" which activate the valves. It's off the subject,
but instead of regular pouches, Schulz used tiny pouch pneumatics to
activate the vales, and they are killers to rebuild and get to work
properly. Since Werner was owned by Schulz, if you find a Werner player
it will have the Schulz player unit. As to the Werner piano, itself,
these, like the Schulz pianos, were above average in quality, but not
really anything to write home about. The fact that this piano was dis-
carded by someone else before you acquired it makes me wonder if they
knew something that you don't--like maybe the pinblock, or bridges or
soundboard are shot, all of which can be very expensive to repair. It
probably would be a good idea to enlist the services of an experienced
piano technician and have him thoroughly check out this piano for you
BEFORE you invest any significant dollars in it to have it refinished.
Even if you're going to do the refinishing yourself, you should have it
checked out first. It would be a shame to invest all that time and ef-
fort to refinish it and then find out that the pinblock is shot and that
therefore the piano can't be tuned. Old upright pianos of this vintage
and quality, especially those needing refinishing, possess little ex-
trinsic value. However, assuming a technician gives it a clean "bill
of health", with some TLC and some dollars and some time, you might
be able to make a usable instrument out of it. However, given the quality
of the instrument, it does NOT pay to invest significant dollars in
rebuilding all or even part of it. If you're faced with having to put
alot of money into it, just to make it playable, those dollars will be
better invested in a newer instrument of better quality. Likewise with
refinishing. It would be more cost-effective if you, yourself do the
refinishing work, rather than paying big bucks to a professional which
you probably could not recover if you tried to sell the piano. Inciden-
tally, the last Werner was built in 1928. I hope this helps! Good luck!
Les Smith
less...@buffnet.net
