I had an old Baldwin-ish 5'8" grand before the Yamaha. I say Baldwin-ish because it said Hamilton on the fallboard, but the lyre said Baldwin.
I know that Baldwin has used the Hamilton name variously over the years, but I was told that in the early 1930s when that piano was made, Hamilton Baldwins were sold as "studio pianos," whatever that is. (Surely somebody here knows.)
I want to say that the tech who told me this said that they were used as practice pianos at music schools, but that really never made sense to me. It had an ornate mahogany case, so it seems more likely that the Hamiltons of the time were a lesser Baldwin line for people who were more concerned about looking at a piano than playing it.
Anyway, I bought it from a man who'd had it in a bar, so I always figured that if it could talk, it would've had some stories to tell. It had a great sound and it played well until it finally didn't. It wasn't worth rebuilding, so I traded it for the Yamaha.
