Piano’s Last Hurrah

Last August I wrote about the piano we obtained from Craigslist for free. Today I leared we got what we paid for. Among the many ‘things I need to get to’ that the New Year has motivated me to finally ‘get to’, was to have a piano technician out to look at our new instrument and hopefully bring it into playing shape with a few turns of a wrench.

Matt was fast and efficient in removing the various lids and covers that are the piano’s skin, exposing an intricate interior. It didn’t take him long to offer the bad news, the sounding board is broke in multiple places, rending our free piano ‘not worth a penny’.

I explained that although the piano lacked pany particular sentimental value that might justify a major expense, the reality was that we need only an instrument good enough to suit the practice needs of a beginner player. With that understanding Matt agreed to ‘tune’ it as best as possible, and give it a good cleaning, with the understanding that he did not recommend our investing any further money into its repair and that if our kids became serious about the piano, we would want to get them a new one within a couple of years.

While removing the keys, Matt commented, “I wonder what we’ll find inside. I could tell you many stories about the things I’ve found inside of pianos.”. He was right that we’d find something. We found a six-ounce fishing weight, and a small baseball bat. By looking up the make and serial number, we concluded that this piano was built between 1905 and 1910, meaning it has either reached or is very close to reaching 100-years of age. We’ll never know the story behind the lost toy and fish weight, but we can give a respectful ‘last hurrah’ to a good looking instrument that is well past its prime.