Randy Hayno wrote:

> My Cremona "G" has six rosettes on the plate.  They look as if they
> were stamped on it with a rubber stamp, as all are exact.  Has anyone
> out there reproduced these?  Perhaps a dry transfer?

They are stamped with a rubber stamp.  I noticed this on many of my old
uprights.  I realized that they stamped the plate with a rubber stamp
using an indelible ink more like paint than office stamp ink.  I went
to the local rubber stamp store and found several stamps that were very
similar to the originals I have run across.  Now that I have a digital
camera, I plan to have rubber stamps made to duplicate the
embellishments I find on a great number of upright piano plates.

Please send me the file of your rosettes and I will have our local
rubber stamp place make us several of them.  Perhaps I will go through
my piano storage and snap pics of as many of these embellishments as
I can find.  We can make stamps of all of them.  I notice there was one
particular floral stamp that was used by several brands of piano.  It
will be my first stamp to be made.

I also have a set of rubber stamps in numbers in two sizes for stamping
serial numbers onto the refinished plate, as well as string gauge
numbers among the tuning pins.

The Cable Co. bird decoration seemed to be painted on freehand but
I will make a stamp of it the next time I do one.

D.L. Bullock    St. Louis
www.thepianoworld.com