Inspect, Inspect, Inspect

In closing, I’d like to remind you that your best protection against buyer’s remorse is having the piano inspected by a piano technician prior to purchasing it, particularly if the piano is more than ten years old. Sometimes it will be sufficient to speak to the seller’s technician about the piano, if he or she has serviced it regularly and has reason to believe that he or she will continue servicing it under your ownership. However, in most situations, you’ll be better off hiring your own technician. You can find a list of Registered Piano Technicians in your area on the website of the Piano Technicians Guild, www.ptg.org.

More Information

If you're serious about buying a used piano, additional information in The Piano Book may be useful to you, including:

• How to remove the outer cabinet parts to look inside the piano
• How to do a preliminary inspection of a piano to rule out those that are not worth hiring a technician to inspect, including an extensive checklist of potential problem areas
• A discussion of issues that frequently come up in regard to the rebuilding of Steinway pianos
• A complete list of older Steinway models, from 1853 to the present
• How to locate the serial number of a piano
• A list of manufacturing dates and serial numbers for Steinway pianos