John Tuttle asked about piano serial numbering in 000205 MMDigest.

I know how three different factories I've worked in allocated their
serial numbers and have seen the process at the (short-lived) Broadwood
piano factory in Acton, West London.  I doubt if there is much
difference.

A greasy, old, old log book, often tied to a screw-eye on the wall
with string to stop people taking it away, is kept in the Production
Dept.  Sometimes it has the numbers already written in down the
left-hand side of a page.  Sometimes there is nothing after the last
entry.

When a stock order (meaning no current customers, just advance
manufacture for a steady selling item) or a sales order reaches the
department, the Production Manager or a minion, usually the latter,
takes out a block of numbers to suit the order. In non-piano works
there are different lists for different products, but with pianos
either there is one list, or two -- one each for uprights and grands.
To judge from the Pierce Piano Atlas, it is more usually the former.

In a rigorously-run works -- which meant almost none before about 1965
when Quality Assurance began to mean rather more than getting a junior
to give the finished product an eyeing-over and final dusting -- a
clerk then makes out a job ticket, route card, or traveller label.
This has the serial number at the top and then a series of boxes
denoting the different stages of manufacture, which the relevant
operator initials or stamps with the date when their part is finished.

The ticket is then tied to a basic part of the product or a container
into which an operator places the necessary parts, using a parts list.
At some stage the ticket gets attached to the outside of the product
and remains there until final inspection is finished, when it has an
"Approved" stamp or initials placed on it and is removed to be kept as
a record should there be problems later.

At Broadwoods only one lot of people ever did any one stage so a ticket
was unnecessary -- or least, thought to be.  The piano took up an
identity when the frame (plate) had completed its finish process, was
carried into the main assembly area from the paint shop and was placed
on a trestle.  The assembly chargehand had a note of the serial numbers
for the batch and chalked them lightly on the frames.  Fairly soon, the
signwriter came along and painted the number onto the frame in the
usual place.  From then on the piano had that identity.  I think a
grand took them about eight weeks to complete from there, but two of
that would be "chipping up" (rough tuning) and correcting blemishes.

Both with pianos and with other items, it follows that the date an item
leaves the factory might be a week or two or over a year later, since
the stock items, and units made early (for ease of assembly) for a
large sales order to be delivered in stages, might well languish in the
stores area for that period.

I have mentioned that I'm a dowser who can usually date a piano or
organ fairly accurately.  With pianos made in the classical "player"
era, the last tree cut down to make a piano usually dated some five
years before completion -- and the delay between completion and shipment
can vary between a week and seven years !

Firms are usually extremely lackadaisical about their record-keeping.
The greasy log book is usually the only record of what was made and
shipped for whom.  If it is lost in a fire and the records have to be
reconstructed for warranty purposes, it can only be done by studying
the copy packing notes, which have to mention the serial numbers if the
Despatch Dept are to have a hope of getting the right things shipped.

The really old-fashioned firms like Steinway & Sons had a similar
greasy book at the sales outlets which denoted the actual shipments.
Rex Lawson (the pianolist) was visiting the London office of Steinway
about seven years ago (I think to find out if they had a MIDI-fitted
grand for a project he was doing), and noticed to his astonishment that
a skip outside contained a heap of ancient leather-bound volumes with
Steinway's name on.  Fishing one out, he found it was a sales record
for the turn of the century.  He went and found the largest carrier bag
he could and removed as many of the oldest books he could carry, which
went back to the opening of the London office in 1877.

We had thought that this meant Steinway had deliberately destroyed
all their records of early sales, but later a Steinway & Sons rep
on Usenet corrected me and said they had put the lot onto microfiche.
Even so ...!

Dan Wilson, London
(Member, Institute of Quality Assurance)