In-Reply-To: <199711080838.AAA02334@foxtail.com>

Julian Dyer speculates about the "Gotha" Steck player made in Germany
and the startup of UK Steck manufacture. I think he wasn't a MMD
recipient at 961207 when I posted on the subject (though no more
informatively than he). The start of the Gotha is marked in a run of
seminal Pianola ads 1905-1908 reproduced in Julian's own journal, the
Player-Piano Group Bulletin for June 1995. In the Nov. 1905 ad we find:

> The Pianola Piano (Broadwood Piano).  The Broadwood Piano needs no
> eulogy from us.  It is the representative English piano and has ever
> held a high place in piano art.
>
> The Pianola Piano (Munck Piano).  Many people prefer the tone of
> German Pianos to any other, and for that reason we have secured
> control of the whole output of Ernst Munck, Gotha.  These pianos
> rank with the best instruments of any firm, and are fully guaranteed.
>
> The Pianola Piano (Weber Piano).  The interests of the celebrated
> Weber Piano Company, of America, have now been secured by the
> manufacturers of the Pianola.  The Weber Piano ranks as one of the
> finest products of American genius, and is one of the very highest
> grade.  It is the leading American piano.

(I commented: So much for Steinway, Knabe, Chickering, Mason & Hamlin,
etc., etc. !)

I've never seen a UK Stroud, and none was ever advertised. The bottom
range after 1921 was the Farrand and later the Aeolian (which had an
80n stack but was still very good value for money).

Stecks were made at the UK Hayes factory earlier than this. My
grandmother had a 1912 65n upright delivered new and I bought an
identical one for =L=25 in perfect working order in 1968. I had
understood UK Steck manufacture to have started in about 1910, in
response to the immense popularity of the player and the market
pressure from the cheaper makes using the Standard action.

As the ad above suggests, Weber were taken over later than Steck, I
think in 1904. This did not prevent Aeolian fitting player actions in
both those pianos in defiance of their age - I've seen a splendid 1901
Steck upright with an _88-note_ action in it !

The early story of Steck was interesting. For a brief period in the
1860s there were Steck concert grands competing with Steinway. We can
guess they had a good chunky sound for the time with, like Steinway, a
very short plinky sustain in the treble. Steinway achieved their later
glittering tone by (from George Steck's viewpoint) overstressing the
strings and thinning the upper treble soundboard. Steinways from about
1885 on never held their tune.

Steck regarded this as sharp practice and developed his own piano as
"the sensible man's Steinway". There was a saying in the trade that if
you fitted a Steck grand with one grade heavier wire all the way up and
brought it up to tune, you ended up either with mortal injuries and a
pile of matchwood and wire - or a Steinway. But Stecks were certainly
stable. Mine had not been tuned for 10 years when I bought it, and the
unisons were perfect.

Like Julian, I venerate the Gotha Steck. A great loss.

Dan Wilson