Mention of piano movers reminds me of the day I had arranged for a firm
to move the 1878 concert grand Steinway I was swapping for a Bechstein.
The ad in Yellow Pages had that look that suggested it wasn't too big a
firm, but a friend had recommended it.

"It's a monster thing," I warned them on the phone.  "You know, those
monumental things Franz Liszt played just before his death ?  With
claws over the wheels that break off if you tilt the piano ?  You have
to bring three tea-chests and take the legs off like repairing the
undercarriage of an aircraft.  And four men."

"I think you'll find we know what we're doing, Sir," they said.
"We've been moving pianos a great many years."

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," I said.  "The piano was too big
to go in the goods lift at the restorers unless they stood it on end.
And even then one of the men had to go to hospital afterwards.  They
reckoned it weighed half a ton."

"Just tell us the time and we'll be there," they said.

So I cleared the room of roll boxes (a major exercise) and took the lid
off for them, and they were as good as their word, arriving dead on
time.  Except that they had only three men and a weeny little shoe
(skate) you might put a five-footer on.  Literally !

They came into the room, one carrying a trolley, one the shoe and the
boss bringing up the rear.  They took one look at the piano and they
wheeled round and departed _without stopping_, except for the boss,
who said, "Jesus, you never said it was one of those !  We're not
safe-movers, you know !"

So then I used safe movers -- successfully.  They said, "An 1878
Steinway ?  With the claws over the wheels which you have to protect
by using tea-chests ?  We've got all the gear."   And they had.

Dan Wilson, London