Piano upgrade time
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I had the chance to buy a rebuilt in SD10 for $1,500 about 3 years ago. It was an instance where the owner had passed and they wanted the piano gone by the end of the week. WAF - Wife acceptance factor came into play - couldn't imagine having a 9 ft Baldwin and 7 ft Steinway in a 20x24 ft living room - at least until I sold one of them.
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@NobodySock How is the move (planning) going?
@taiwan_girl said in Piano upgrade time:
@NobodySock How is the move (planning) going?
iT is going as well as can be expected i guess. There are overwhelming days and normal days but I seem to be moving through my checklist apace with good news on the boat selling front and possibly the Petrof selling part. I have a buyer for the Merc SUV, and just got Ford pickup truck back from having its tranny rebuilt. It now goes in both forward and reverse!!! I need it for these last 34 days to haul some woodchips to fill in all my dirt beds in yard and then paint them all red like the Queen of Hearts demands. (see Disney movie Alice in Wonderland, also where I fell in love with eating oysters).
The piano and my stupidity of even looking on Pianomart since I made my hard decision to buy in Europe, have set me back a bit though and I have intentions of driving down there and seeing if this old Baldwin is as great as they say it was. I learned much about Baldwin since posting last with some cool details and stories I would share here if any are interested. For instance, not a mystery , but in Baldwin's hey day, and let's be clear of that time span, from 1958 to 1967, Baldwin spit out the finest grand pianos in the world. Yes, the world. That is for any one who ever sat at these SD10's and SF10's and played on them and immediately said, holy fvck!, now tyat's a grand piano!. Thickest case of any grand ever made, 1 piece rim, no expense spared on wood and parts. Bechstein makers now in the lab with Baldwin to make a Steinway D killer. And that's what the SD10 was made for. The raves about his little brother the SF10, are due to how it is much more situated for the residential home and not the concert hall. an SD10 can probably break windows in a confined space. lol. So this piano in question , SN 189644, places it on Baldwins sn list as a 1969 piano. Now, that puts it two years out from that peak production perfect piano time span i mentioned. But more noodling and detective work , there are some photos on the pianomart ad, were enough to determine that this is actually a 1966 model. Baldwin had a big habit of storing pianos in warehouses for long periods of time until buyers/dealers needed one. This piano was actually sold new in 1969 and that is how Baldwin tracked their year built. I am now looking at a possible unicorn that destiny has placed in my path. And as destiny would have it, make it an easy decision for me to make logistally at least. Laguna Beach is halr hour from Long Beach where my container will eventually be loaded and place on a ship. It is very possible my 20' container has room for this piano and it would virtually only add the cost of the special handling the piano requires ( a hand built crate to surround it), and I then will have the only Baldwin on the island, let alone Italy. All of this hinges of course of how I feel after playing it.
I plan to stop at Kim's piano on the way and test drive all those big tier1 brands they have and get a feel for what each brings in tone, action,etc), I will know better how good this Baldwin is the first minute I play it after sitting at new Fazioli's, Bechsteins, Steinways, Yammays, and a myriad of used grands.
My villa has plenty of room for it and yes, it is a beast of a piano in size and weight. A Baldwin in Sardinia though. It could be the beginning of a good novel. lol.. I will have to address humidity there as there is great flucuation from summer to winter, winter very humid and summers are not, a damp chaser or maybe just dehumidfier in living room in Winter should take care of it. I worry about the voyage a bit as they say the older wood doesn't like moisture as well as new, well they like it more actually, they suck it all in being more porous i guess -
Hey Mik, I'm sure you are aware of the Baldwin factory that was spitting out these pianos faster than McDonalds in Cincinnatti? Did you grow up in that town?
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PS: the model year was determined by looking at the stamp of SD-10 on the plate. The stamping in the photo in the ad aligned with 1966, 1969 stamp looked different and it also had a letter A or B at the end which i am still trying to determine what they meant. I am going to visit an elderly man who restores these pianos. He has great respect by local techs, one of whom I hired to meet me at the piano to give it a once over.
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Most concert grand sized pianos for sale as used are almost worthless unless restored as the odds are that they lived in a concert hall getting pounded on and moved around its whole life. Then there are those concert grands out there that spent most of their life in some fancy living room as piece of furniture. Those are where the unicorns lie.
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Mine is not a full restore based on the description of most action parts replaced, All renner. The SD-10 was Baldwin's first piano with a full Renner action in it as well. This tells me the strings are fine and didn't need replacement, telling me this piano was mummified for years.
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oh to own a satin ebony piano will be a glorious day. I am so tired of shiny polyester finishes it could be a deal breaker if I found a piano with it and had everything else I wanted in a piano.
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on the move side, there is a way for me to extricate myself from all things California, so as to not have to continue to pay state taxes there for the rest of my life though I am living in Italy. California is known as a "sticky" state, and there are certain things one must show as proof that you have moved out of California into another state. The whole living in Italy does not meet this requirement. So, since I have friends and family in the state right next door, Nevada, where there is no state tax, I have already gained permission from one of these friends, to use his address as my new home address in the states. I also need to drive over there and apply for a Nevada drivers license. I need to register to vote in the state of nevada. I need to open up a local bank account with a local bank there. I need to take myself off of all things associated with california. If I can accomplish all this in my short time span here, I can permanently avoid state taxes for life. And all of this is legal and on the up and up. Renting out my home here in California actually helps bolster their belief I have moved away as I now have no home I can return to in California while it;s being rented out. Of course California will still tax my income from this rental but that can be offset greatly with write offs.
