[Freda1962]

Thanks again jerbel... So is Clough around tonight or no?

[jrebel7]

I sent him a PM to make sure he knows you have posted the image. If he is online, he should respond soon. Sometimes, it is later when he comes online. :)

[Clough]

Dear Freda,

I'm glad that you were finally able to post an image! That's great! Thank you for doing that!

I haven't been around very much in the past two days because I have been spending time with my daughter who is visiting from California and also have had some other things that have needed attention in my life.

I will try to be online tonight from about 10:00 P.M. on. Hopefully, you might be on around the same time.

[Clough]

I was online here around 10:30 this evening and I'm sorry that we missed each other, Freda. Don't know what time zone you are in. But, that would have been about twenty minutes after you were here.

I have edited your image some so that things are a little bit easier to see.

From the image, it looks as though the instruments has been refinished and also has had new plastic, white keytops installed. Having both of those things done is good and shows that there has been some positive care of the piano. Hopefully, that care has continued on for decades. I don't know about the condition of the black keys, because it's hard to tell what they look like from the image.

There is also a considerable amount of "gingerbread" in the woodwork, especially on the music rack and columned legs. The wood underneath the bottom of the legs is also rounded at the front. That much artwork on the wood would be more indicative that the instrument might be as old as the late 19th century. Also, the fact that the fallboard is rounded and "falls" back in imitation of the style of that on grand pianos and that there is an ornate metal plate around the two pedals might also lead one to believe that it might be dated in the 19th century. You might want to try putting the fallboard behind the music rack, since there doesn't appear to be any place where a person could place printed music if the fallboard is in front of the music rack.

The bench is not the original one for the piano because the legs don't match or go with the style of the columned legs on the body of the piano. On such an ornate instrument, care would have been taken for the legs of the bench to at least look like they matched the style of the legs on the body of the piano. The bench might even be an old organ bench because of the height of it. Although, that is hard to tell because the picture of the piano was taken at a slightly elevated angle.

It's a beautiful piano. However, I don't know how much internal restoration has been done to it or if it can even be tuned and how well it holds its pitch after it has been tuned. Although, I have tuned extremely old pianos that still have the original strings where I could still tune them up to the current standard pitch.

A piano that is that old, in order to be in top-notch playing condition, would need to have had the hammers, bridle straps and most of the felts in the action replaced by now. Maybe even completely restrung. The action consists of the area underneath the keys to the point where the hammers strike the strings. Also, the action would have had been regulated at least a few times in the life of this instrument.

It might be beneficial to see some images of both the bottom and top part of the insides of the piano. Also, some close-ups of the hammers, strings and action would help, in order to see what the condition of the inside is. By opening it up, we could also find the serial number so that a more exact date of the piano could be determined.

Right now, my ballpark figures for estimating a possible value for the instrument, if it is in top-notch playing condition, would be that it might be worth around $600.00 to $1,200.00 if it were to be sold in a piano or piano/music store. People don't get those kinds of prices for pianos that they sell out of their homes, though.

In a store where you have a lot of pianos being sold, there are many customers who are going in and out of the store. So, it's more likely to be able to find someone in that environment who will pay those kinds of prices for an old upright piano. Especially, if the old upright piano will look good in the environment of their home.

[Freda1962]

Thanks so much Clough for your help... I asked the lady to email me a pic of the inside but no reply. She is asking 500.00 for the piano. Wonder where I could get a bench to match it?
Thanks,
Freda

[Clough]

Do you want to have this piano so that you and maybe others can enjoy playing it?

Concerning a bench. I would look around at antique stores for benches that might match the style on the columned legs. It might even be a chair that you will find that could be appropriate. The original place for sitting, that goes with my 1906 Chickering grand piano, is a piano stool with a back on it. If this piano that you are thinking about buying is as old as we think that it might be, it's not unlikely that it too, had a stool that went with it.