Introduction

Pianos are unique among consumer goods in the extent to which deciding whether or not to purchase a particular instrument combines hardheaded choices about price and features with emotional responses involving art and passion. For many, buying a piano is more like finding a marriage partner than like buying a refrigerator or washing machine. Selling a piano, too, has its special challenges and fulfillments: satisfying the famous client, the donated instrument that helped launch a career, the sharing of a touching moment involving the importance of a piano in a customer’s life.

In Piano-Buying Stories, we bring together tales, from both consumers and retailers, of their experiences in buying or selling pianos that were somehow unusual, surprising, touching, or instructive — or all of these at once. We invite the submission of additional stories; please see our submission guidelines. — L.F.

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If you'd like to make a comment on any of the stories, please visit our Piano-Buying Stories blog page.