I thought of some funny stories the other day, and I thought that
readers of MMD might get a charge out of them:

An individual (who shall remain nameless) was negotiating with me a few
years ago for the purchase of a rebuilt Steinway Duo-Art.  Ultimately,
this "thrifty" (ahem) individual decided to buy a piano from somebody
else, a dealer-rebuilder I had never met.

I would occasionally meet this individual, and one day he said that
the Weber Duo-Art he purchased needed some piano work.  As I was busy,
I thought I would send down a friend who knew a lot about pianos but
had only limited experience with Duo-Arts.  On the day of the
appointment, I get a phone call from my friend who is trying to work
on the piano.  He tells me, "This is a very rare Duo-Art".

I ask him why he thinks it is rare.  He continues, "You know those long
holes in the tracker bar, the ones above the first four and last four
notes?"  I assured him I did.

"Well," he continues, "on this piano, they put the long holes _under_
the note holes."

I was thunderstruck until I realized that the idiot "rebuilder" didn't
even know how to replace a tracker bar without turning it upside down.

Watch out when you get something for a real low price -- you run the
risk that you just might get your money's worth.

Now for the other story.  This one concerns a "birdcage" upright piano.
If you are familiar with pianos, you know that occasionally you run
across these things.  They all can be described as follows: Made in
Europe from the late 1800's to the early 1900's, they have truly
beautiful cases.  Fancy veneer and/or carving are standard, along with
a pair of fancy brass sconces to hold a candle on each side of the
sheet music.

If you take the front board off the top to look at the action, you will
see perhaps 65 vertical wires in front of the action, running up to
horizontally mounted damper levers that rest above the hammer line.
All these wires gave the name "birdcage action".

Perhaps there is nothing wrong in theory with this design, but in
practice it is the most despised piano in the trade, even more than
square grands!  Some square grands do not deserve the reputation that
people have assigned them, but birdcages do deserve their reputation.

It seems the entire inside of these pianos was made with the cheapest,
crudest materials and workmanship.  The quality of the wood is so bad
that even Model A Ampico parts are a little better.  Clarence Hickman
personally told me he insisted to Mr. Stoddard that the Model B be made
better than the Model A -- and he was dealing with these mechanisms
when they were new!

It's the same thing with birdcage pianos: they were junk when they were
new, and now a technician has to work with 100-year-old junk.  So back
to the story.

My friend was called by an antique store to service a piano they had,
a birdcage upright.  He explained to the owner that although the piano
was beautiful, it was not worth fixing because of inherent flaws.

The owner understood, but told my friend that the only problem that
potential buyers kept on objecting to was the fact that note #1 did
not work.  My friend looked at the action and realized that the entire
mechanism for note #1 was missing.  The key was there, but that was
all.  Birdcage action parts have not been sold for many years, and
modern actions cannot be adapted.  It would be a long and miserable
job to try to hand-make a new mechanism.

My friend realized that the missing note was the least of this piano's
problems.  Tying a bunch of empty cans to a dog's tail would probably
produce better music than this upright.  My friend put on his thinking
cap and stared at the action.

He pushed down note #2.  The back of the key rose, and pushed up
the "abstract" or "sticker" to play the note.  Suddenly, inspiration
struck!

He used some 5-minute epoxy to attach a small block of wood to the
lower left side of abstract #2.  This way, when you pressed key #1, the
back of the key rose up and pushed the block of wood.  This caused note
#2 to play.  Every key now made a sound; 88 keys and 87 sounds.  They
sold the piano shortly thereafter.  I don't suppose it was to a
musician.

If anybody else has weird stories, please submit them -- we all need
a laugh now and then.

Randolph Herr