Part 2: Instrument Quality
What
should I look for in a used piano? This
is a question every parent of a beginning piano student should
ask themselves. Look on a dealer’s showroom floor and you will see pianos
priced, in many cases, a thousand dollars more than what you can find them in
the paper for. Is the dealer
gouging? Not if they are providing
goods and services for a fair price. True,
a dealer is going to have to make some profit because that’s how one stays in
business, but consider this. Well
over 90% of the pianos I purchase haven’t been tuned in many years, requiring
several tunings to bring the instrument back to proper pitch – something that
is very important for a beginning (or experienced) player.
Generally, that is around $200 if done by a qualified tuner.
Transportation cost should also be included, and a quick check of prices
will show that on average that is worth around $195.
That’s $395 before even getting into the reconditioning process that a
used piano SHOULD go through – on average that runs around $400 for the
interior cleaning and action regulation (process of making each key play
properly and uniformly with the rest). Exterior
cabinet work (not necessary for the piano to play properly but very important
according to most of my customers) runs around $300 for a complete disassembly,
professional touchup/polishing and having the brass hardware machine buffed and
lacquered. Add to this the dealer
bearing the burden of shopping for and inspecting the many used pianos that come
up for sale each month in this area (thus saving you the inconvenience of
contacting a half dozen different individuals who don’t know what condition
the inside of the piano is really like, generally don’t arrange financing for
those who need it and don’t take credit cards for those who like accumulating
those air miles….). Consider
purchasing from the dealer who is providing these services as well as a
warranty, in-home tuning (different from having it tuned in the store and worth
an additional $80) and bench (for the pianos that didn’t have one in the home
– more common than you think) and in many cases a tradeback guarantee for
those whose students stay with lessons and will progress with a better
instrument. This instrument will
give far better results for the student than an instrument that has not been
properly serviced for many years.