I saw an unusual upright in an antique mall Saturday.  The folks who
run the mall didn't know there was anything odd about it, but after I
showed them it's rather unique construction, they were very intrigued.
I'm beginning to realize that odd pianos aren't necessarily all that
odd, but this one beats anything I've seen.  At any rate, I told them
I'd do a little research and forward my findings to them, and so here
I am.

The piano is a Hallet & Davis upright; the casework is fairly elabor-
ate, and, based on that , looks to be circa 1890-1900.  It is for the
most part, a conventional, modern upright piano, with  7 1/2 octaves,
overstrung bass, underdamper action, etc.

The only difference at all is that the instrument has no plate.  The
strings go through agraffes mounted below the pinblock, then proceed
to bridges and so on as on a normal piano.  (Now that I think about it,
I forgot to look at the hitch pins).  Even with the absence of a plate,
there is no more visible bracing than on a normal piano.  While it's
probably not up to A=440, it was pretty much in tune with itself, and
had a less powerful tone than a conventional piano.  Incidentally, the
maker's name had been lost from the fallboard during refinishing, but
is cast into the decorative plate behind the pedals.

I'm currently working under the assumption that this piano was made
well before 1890, but, weren't plates in pretty general use before
overstringing became popular?  I've seen lots of straight-strung pianos
from the 1870s onward with plates, but all the plateless pianos I've
seen have been straight-strung, and were generally made well before
1870. However, most of the pianos I've seen from before about 1870
didn't have such modern features as a 7 1/2 octave keyboard and/or an
underdamper action.

I didn't see a serial number inside, but I'll look again next weekend.
The lack of a plate (and the lack of increased bracing to compensate)
is the only difference I can see between this piano and conventional
upright pianos.

This piano has me puzzled  In fact, this instrument flies in the
face of all I know of the history of piano development (except that,
occasionally, some really odd instruments turn up).  I always thought
that plates became common well before overstringing did.

I realize that the easiest way to determine the age of this piano is the
Pierce Piano Atlas, but, as is said, I currently don't have a serial
number.  Has anyone else run into such a piano?

Perhaps someone has some kind of period advertising that makes refer-
ence to such a unique design.  I know that Hallet & Davis made the
"Virtuolo" player; were they anything unusual?  I know from reading the
MMD archives that they apparently had some kind of unique expression
coding system; perhaps the folks at Hallet & Davis were a bit more
creative than other manufacturers.  Can anyone shed some light on this
instrument?

As I said, it beats anything I've seen.  Perhaps my understanding of
the sequence of events in the development of the modern upright piano
is faulty.

Bryan S. Cather, Arlington, Texas

72 degrees, and this is supposed to be January?!