Many years ago, I was called by the chairman of the music department
of a local university.  It seems there was a grand piano in the voice
instructor's studio that needed attention.  When I arrived, the voice
instructor pointed to the drawer underneath the keyboard of a beautiful
Mason and Hamlin grand and said:  "I want THAT removed!"

I knew that if I removed the drawer and took it with me, it would never
be reunited with the piano whose serial number indicated that it left
East Rochester, NY in 1942!

As calmly as I could, I told the instructor the piano would have to
come to my shop for the operation... a bald faced lie as most of you
know.  I could have done it in about 30 minutes with a knife (for the
rubber tubing) and a screwdriver.  The instructor said that would not
be possible (I kind of knew that is what he would say) and I left.

Two years later the local Baldwin dealer got the contract to replace
all the pianos in that music department.  The Baldwin dealer, an old
friend, called me up and asked me if I wanted the Mason and Hamlin.
I burned tire rubber getting over to his store with a check.  I made
one telephone call and the piano was sold!  We rebuilt the piano from
the ground up and it now lives, happily, in a home on a cliff
overlooking Austin, Texas.

Getting it in the house was the trick.  There was no access to the
grand home through the front door and no sidewalk to the rear patio
which had an entrance into the music room.  Fortunately, the piano
mover had moved pianos for me for years and I could send him anywhere,
even hell, and could rest assured that the piano would be placed just
where the customer wanted it.

After telling me, "Take a pill and relax," the mover and his helpers
literally lifted the piano around to the back of the house.  They
hugged the cliff and into the music room it went, where it still is
today.  All of my gray hair has been earned, and that experience
contributed to a large amount of "snow on the roof!"

Ed Gaida - Preserving music by punching holes in paper.
San Antonio, Texas