quote:

Originally posted by Zorba:
...I like the bolt-on brace in the treble...

I don't think it's actually "bolt-on", like S&S uses in their grands between the tenor and treble, but rather cast as one, with a fairly common flange for a "nose bolt".

Interesting that this Chickering square uses the same sort of dampers as that square a few pages back that was the subject of an identification problem at PW, rather than the more common levered type.

No, a square that had its pic on the Piano Forum at PW for awhile. According to Rick nobody every id'd it.

Oh yeah, that one. As far as I know, that's right, nobody ID'd it. I hijacked the end of tat thread talking about the S&S.

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:

Wilhelm Biese Upright Pianoforte Berlin c1866: extremely rare, floral painted central glass panel gold-plated brass & porcelain sconces,
overdamper action meticulously cleaned and restored but all parts including ivories and felts original

WOW! Pretty!

quote:

Originally posted by OperaTenor:
...Also, weren't the flowery casting and the spoked wheel embellishments Chickering always used in their square grands?

Nope. (Though that particular plate is quite common.)

And if you look at the concert grands, their plate designs vary just as much from very, very simple, to ostentatiously ornate, all from the same time periods. Their entire production seems to be all over the map, with new designs built alongside old designs for upwards of decades and furniture styles and plate styles also all over the map, with very early examples of what we call "modern" among their grands, even while the ornate rococco beasts emerged from the factory even 20 years later. Even cross-stringing versus "flat-strung" is all over the map, with simultaneous or seemingly out-of-sequence production of both. Even action designs seem to be no good landmark for them with the older Brown-style appearing even after the company had long-ago built models with the more conventional Erard-derived model.

The only way I can account for such odd production habits is that many of the designers worked there well into old age. Doubtless many of them were partial to some of the "old ways" while others were experimenting with new methods. I would guess working there was like being a kid in a workshop, with freedom to do pretty much anything, as long as the result was a good quality piano, with many accepted methods of getting there. I don't see the kind of top-down controlled consistency one sees evident in other companies' production evolution.

I recently saw a concert grand I'd have sworn had to be one of their very last, guessed by me as about 1932, because it was of incredibly modern lines inside and out, with the most elegantly simple-but-open plate forms. It could easily have stood beside a new Bluthner. But it turned out to be from 1870 and 25 years older than models one might mistake for Civil War era production.

One particular Chickering collector I've become superficially acquainted with collects them specifically because of the variety of their plate production. I'm beginning to believe many of them may have even been one-offs.

If I were guessing about The Unknown Square, though, I would say it's not Chickering. I've never seen a single example of the hand-painted plate. I'd think it more likely Decker Bros., as they frequently did the decoratively-painted plates, both in squares and grands.

quote:

Originally posted by ChickGrand:
Perhaps an Operatenor Special:



More views at:

Firewood for Sale

That one would be a lot of work just to make a desk out of it.

A Chickering, no less.

looks like this one is a whole orchestra!

here's a butterfly piano with the lids removed

Not if you heard it first.

quote:

Originally posted by Zorba:
Awww, Poor little thing! It only has 3-1/2 octaves, someone's gotta give it some love!

This is what you get when one of those reproducing pianos takes a shine to an accordian.

(It's not easy being chromatically challenged.)

I've only "tuned" one of those little guys... It has the feel of a toy piano!

Here's another hidden piano -

quote:

Originally posted by Frycek:
This is what you get when one of those reproducing pianos takes a shine to an accordian.

(It's not easy being chromatically challenged.)

Goddess Mother! I'm glad I didn't have food in my mouth when I read that! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

And the rest of the Debain



That is ivory inlay!

Wow! Wouldn't exactly fit my decor but I could see this twinkling like a star against a very stark background of blacks and whites.

..sneaky..