Re: Lime Green Steinways (020921 MMDigest).  Mark Kinsler said:

> But since I'm an enthusiast in many other areas, I can easily see the
> problem that a fine craftsman would have with someone who wishes to
> paint a Steinway a nice lime green to match the rumpus room furniture.
> You need the business, but at what cost to integrity?

This particular cloud does have a silver lining.  It is that a lime
green finish detaches a piano from the "gracious home piano-shaped
object" circuit and, a little further down the ownership line, makes
a Steinway available to a struggling musician who normally can't afford
a good instrument.

However, if it's a Steinway with a Green Welte action, I agree that
capital punishment is the only proper recourse.  I have known restorers
to buy instruments out of the hands of such clients simply to avoid
vandalism of that order.

The nearest I ever got to that was when I was asked to assess a 65-note
player upright for rebuilding.  It turned out to be one of the very
first "Gotha" Stecks made for Aeolian by the former Munck piano works,
1906, with a beautiful Art Nouveau case in mint condition and the
fabled Gotha tone.

It must have been a prototype because, made a year before the
accentuation system "Themodist" was launched in America and two years
before the UK, it had a Themodist tracker-bar and extra valve block and
_no_ Metrostyle pointer, or indeed any suitable wide brass "Tempo"
scale of Metrostyle type.  The "Tempo" scale was of the miniature
variety found on 'Standard'-action pianos of the period.

The owner was a fine pianist and loved it, it needed action work
which she would get done anyway, but was it worth restoring as a
player?  I realized that she would have no interest in roll-playing,
let alone collecting 65-note rolls, and restoration of the player
action would cost her =L=800 and add nothing to the resale value.
The piano's value as a player was a narrow specialist one.  I had no
equivalent piano to offer in exchange and no room to house any more
of my own.

If it had been a Welte-equipped instrument of that date things would
have been different, but I had to recommend restoration without the
player action.  The hangmen can come and get me, but I had a duty to
my client.

Dan Wilson, London