[ Ref. Don Teach in 170221 MMDigest ]

Hello,  This is my first posting in a very long time.  But what I have
been reading regarding the dispersal of the Randolph Herr collection
has left me utterly aghast, with feelings ranging from terror to livid
anger, to sadness and depression, to nausea, to shame and depression.
I could no longer remain silent.  A Steinway model D R is something
I have dreamed of owning for many years.  It is something I would
highly deserve and treasure, and would have the ability to maintain for
many years in the future.

When I first learned of this D R coming up for sale, I was extremely
excited.  I even seriously thought I might be able to obtain it with
the help of a small inheritance I'm set to receive soon.  But now, if I
understand correctly, it and all the remaining pianos in the collection
have _already_ sold for a paltry lot total of $5,000, with the D R
headed for some chop-shop overseas!  Somebody is actually going to take
this rare, precious instrument -- of which there are only 8 or 9 still
left in the world -- and hack off six inches from it!

It boggles my mind how I, who have dedicated the past 25 years of my
life to learning about pianos -- how to play them, repair them and
restore them -- and would have done _anything_ to be able to acquire
this instrument; I missed out on the chance to do so by the closest
scrape.  Even more impossible is the fact that it had just landed into
the hands of someone who, if I understand, didn't even know the
difference between a grand and an upright.

I am still clinging to hope that something can and will be done to save
this treasure.  Perhaps someone else who can appreciate this instrument
will rescue it before its head falls under the guillotine.  That, at
least, would be of some consolation to me.  Or, if anyone can tell me
the name and email address of where it was sent to overseas, I might
talk to them and arrange to save it yet.

I have heard it said that humanity lives in an entirely coin-operated
world.  Somehow, that has never felt truer to me than now.  And while
coin-operated instruments are indeed marvelous and wonderful things,
there must also be room in this world for humanity, for doing the right
thing, for compassion, for sanity, and for the absolute refusal to
allow irreplaceable artifacts of our history and culture to be hacked
up and spit out.

So please, fellow MMD'ers, let's come up with a way to save this.  If
not for me, than for the sake of preservation and appreciation (dare
I say "love?") of a marvelous instrument, of which there now fewer than
ten in the entire world.  This one needs our help, folks.

Hopefully,
Dax King
So. California