The other day a customer of mine called and told me that she had bought a piano that I had recommended to her.  The story started in August, 2008.  While I was at her home tuning her piano, she mentioned that they would be interested in finding a good quality upright to replace their piano, a small spinet of lesser quality.  I put her name on my watch list where it has been for over a year.

A couple weeks ago, a new customer called and asked me to appraise her piano, one which was part of her parent's estate.  She needed to know what it was worth, and advice on selling it.  The piano was a J C Fischer upright, over a hundred years old, but looked almost like a new piano.  I looked in my appointment book and found several names of people looking for an upright piano.

I called the customer who eventually bought the piano (the most likely candidate on the list) and put her on the phone with the owner.  The owner told her the following story about the piano's history.

The piano was purchased by a wealthy mine owner here in Sacramento in 1906, for his wife.  The mine owner's partner was the seller's grandfather.  Sometime in the 30's, if I remember correctly, the miner's wife passed away and the owner gave the piano to his partner's daughter (the current seller's mother) as a wedding present.  The piano has been moved to several locations around northern California over the years, but always ended up back in the Sacramento area.  With the death of her mother, the piano ended up going to the daughter.  She and her sister took lessons on the piano when they were little girls.  She really wanted to find a good home for the piano, and the family who bought it is very excited to have it.  I'm sure they well take good card of it.  They have two young daughters who are taking lessons and who are very interested in history in school, so they were very excited to hear about the piano's past.  I'm sure they will love it and take good care of it.

The piano is unusual in that it has an absolutely pristine ivory keyboard.  It looks like it just left the factory.  That is extremely rare for any piano, especially one this age.  The instrument was refinished and received a high quality piano finish instead of a cheap furniture refinisher's open grain finish, which is also rare.  It is a beautiful dark red cherry color and has a matching claw foot swivel stool.  Here is a picture of this beautiful old piano.