In Digest #970523, Don Teach writes:

> The further you get away from the east coast the piano manufacturers
> made pianos with poorer quality pianos.  Remember this is just a rule
> of thumb and I guess there were exceptions I do not know about.

The Berry-Wood I have (supposedly manufactured in Kansas City, MO,  but many
have been in New York?) was left outside after it was hauled from inside a
building that was demolished (while the piano was still in it!),  It was
used as a "hutch" for junk in an artist's backyard; the artist hated pianos
and the equal-tempered tuning system.  Thru rain and fog and falling on its
back as it was moved to my storage space,  the pin block and sounding board
are still in fairly good shape and actually are in better condition than
some pianos I've seen that have been "properly" cared for over the years. I
don't care for the bad engineering of B/W's pneumatic components,  but at
least the basic materials seem of high quality.  The question is,  were they
really manufactured in Kansas City?

S.K.Goodman