An almost horrifying story.

A few months ago, I began to hear some stories about a piano that
sounded unbelievable, and now that I know the story to be true, having
heard the story right from the horse's mouth, I thought I would share
it with MMD.

Let me say at the outset that the story has a relatively happy ending,
so don't get too upset when you get to the middle of the story.  In
other words, if somebody tells you a story that begins "I know this guy
who was using a table saw to cut up tiny pieces of wood, when ...",
a normal reaction might be to get a little sick as you wait for the
gory details to be revealed.  Like I said, there is a relatively happy
ending here, thank God.

The story starts about 25 years ago when I went to an AMICA Convention
in Buffalo, NY.  I met a man named Kay Harmas who had discovered a
9-1/2-foot Steinway Duo-Art in an old mansion.  As you probably know,
the 9-foot grand is the largest piano Steinway made except for the very
few that were designed to be players, and these are about 6 inches longer
than the corresponding non-player.  In any case, I tried to get Kay to
sell it to me since it is the ultimate piano in my opinion.

Making it even more desirable was the fact that of all the 9-1/2-footers
that were made (no more than 10, I believe), most of them had been
gutted of their mechanisms and suffered various abuse from their
various owners over the years.  The one Kay found was in pristine
original condition with all of the original mechanism, including the
two pumps Aeolian put in for extra power.  In any case, Kay said he
was not interested in selling it at that time, and as the years went
by, Kay vanished from the sight of all collectors who wondered what
happened to him.

Exactly what did happen to Kay over the 25 years may never be known,
but this is what happened about two years ago.  It seems that Kay
died of a brain tumor, and it appears that much, if not all of his
collection, including the 9-1/2-footer, was being stored in a double
car garage he rented.  I assume that the landlord got quite annoyed that
he was no longer getting his rent check, and was unable to contact Kay,
and it finally got to the point where he had to take some action.

Now you might assume that the landlord would realize that if someone
had been paying rent to store something away for years, it was likely
something valuable and so he would auction off the contents to pay the
rent debt.  Well, you'd be assuming wrong in this case, because this
imbecile landlord was so angry (and stupid) that he hired a wrecking
crew to smash everything up and throw it into dumpsters!

Apparently, there was so much stuff that they could not throw it away
all in one day.  By an incredible coincidence, some individual just
happened to be walking by and realized the desecration going on.  He
called up a friend of his, a piano dealer, and told him that there
was a big Steinway about to be broken up and thrown away.

The dealer rushed down to the site and quickly negotiated a deal on the
piano.  I assume he got it for free, but that is beside the point.  His
movers quickly arrived, and put the piano on the truck, but the dealer
realized there were no legs, and he asked the wreckers where the legs
were.  He was told that they were already thrown away, so the dealer
jumped into the dumpster and managed to find the three legs.

Then he asked about the lyre, and they said that it was thrown away
also.  He again jumped into the dumpster, but he couldn't find any
trace of the lyre.  He told the wreckers that he couldn't find the
lyre, and they told him that it must have been thrown away in
yesterday's dumpster!  The dealer never went to the junkyard where
the other dumpster went, so the lyre was lost, but that was nothing
compared to losing the piano.

I eventually tracked down the dealer who may or may not want to be
revealed at this point, so I will err on the side of caution and keep
it under my hat.  In any case, I asked the dealer if he wanted to
sell the piano, and indeed, he did.  All I had to do was to pay him
$325,000.   Now, you may think that is quite a markup for a piano he
probably got for free, but if this dealer had not been in business for
many years, and made a lot of friends, then the guy walking down the
street might have just kept on walking.

Now, isn't that almost the most horrible story you ever heard?  I don't
want to think about the stuff that did get smashed up and thrown away;
it hurts too much.

Randolph Herr