John Phillips' informant in Hobart, Tasmania, is simply wholly
incorrect!  Steck pianos were built in the USA, Germany and the UK.

Aeolian bought the Ernst Munck factory in Gotha, Germany, in 1905.
About a year later they renamed it and its products "Steck", and it
operated under that name until sold to Hupfeld in October 1924.
They made about 5000 instruments per year.  Aeolian's Steck catalogue
of maybe ca. 1910 described it thus:

  "Today the Steck is one of the best known pianos of Germany and
  enjoys an enviable reputation throughout Europe.  The great plant
  of the Aeolian Company recently erected at Gotha, Germany, is one
  of the largest and most perfectly equipped piano factories in the
  world.  It is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of Steck
  pianos for the German and European markets."

From ca. 1921 Steck pianos were made in the London factory, copying
the case styles and branding of the German pianos, but not quite their
quality.

Occasionally a "Hupfeld-Gotha" player piano appears.  These sound
somewhat like the Gotha Stecks but clearly come from another style of
manufacturing.  Hupfeld closed the [Gotha] factory on 1 April 1927.
The building is still standing.

Semantics don't come into it -- the products are "Steck" through and
through, labelled on the soundboard and inlaid in brass in the
fallboard!  If we wish to be truly pedantic, "Steck" pianos were never
made in the USA, only "George Steck" pianos.

Julian Dyer

 [ Steck catalogue 1
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/14/10/21/141021_192556_Steck_Catalogue_1.jpg
 

 [ Steck catalogue 2
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/14/10/21/141021_192556_Steck_Catalogue_2.jpg
 

 [ Aeolian acquires George Steck & Co., NY Globe, Dec. 1904
 [ http://www.mmdigest.com/Attachments/14/10/21/141021_220026_Steck1904.png