Pianotech

First visit to an old 5' Brambach grand. The first thing I notice is gated legs (6 vs. 3), often a player cabinet. It's been restrung, a while ago, and the paint on the plate is very faded. The arms are narrow, maybe just over an inch, all of which points to something in the 1920's. Beautiful white ivories.

A serial number is visible on the soundboard through a hole in the plate on the curved side, around 46,000, dating to 1954, which seemed odd to me, because the piano looked much older. There was no decal on the soundboard.

The action had the Brambach rectangular knuckles and weird jack, and also the upright-style soft pedal rail that lifts the hammers to the strings. The rail was split, to lift one half or both, but was not connected; it had the standard una corda shift pedal.  

Further review found a different serial number stamped into the belly rail, below the edge of the soundboard: 20,000! This dates to 1911, more like what my initial impression was. That number was also stamped under the piano somewhere (I forget). The keyed had a slot cut in it for a player, and two small packets of silica gel were stapled to it.

A technician had initialed and dated the plate in the treble with a date of 1966, and it looked like the pinblock had been replaced with the restringing (and torque was good).

So the puzzler is, what's the deal with that 46,000 number stamped into the soundboard? Could a tech actually have transplanted a 1954 board into a 1911 case?

--Cy--

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Cy Shuster, RPT
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.shusterpiano.com
http://www.facebook.com/shusterpiano

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Brambach mysteries -- you've got to love them!

Are you sure that that serial number in the 20,000's wasn't really in the 200,000's?

Little story: I was called to tune a "mystery" grand for someone near retirement age who takes lessons with a good local teacher. The name had been lost with the decal when his mother refinished it a very long time ago, and apparently the secret of the brand had passed on with her.

I love a challenge (so long as it is pretty unimportant and without personal risk <grin>), so I sought to solve this mystery. It looked the right length for a Brambach, and the rim was thin enough for a Brambach, but the quality looked too high. The plate was quite substantial and well -gilded, the action still worked just fine and was nicely spaced and regulated, and the tone wasn't even all that bad, despite the short length. And I saw a serial number painted on the left side of a treble plate strut near the tuning pins, and it was a great big long serial number. 250083.

At that point, I started searching in Pierce for likely companies (is it a Cable? no ... is it a tiny Ludwig? no ... etc.) and I found that a serial number in the 250,000's can only belong to a very few companies. In fact, the only logical answer was Kohler & Campbell. ("Aha! It's a kind of weird Kohler & Campbell!")

Finally checked the Brambach listings, and found that Kohler & Campbell had bought the company in 1933, and that Brambachs after that can have Kohler & Campbell serial numbers. 250083 was earlier than the earliest Pierce listed for 1933 Brambachs, but not by much.

I reasoned that when Kohler & Campbell first bought Brambach, they decided to put some effort and capital into it, and that accounted for the quite un-Brambach-like good quality. Looking more carefully, I saw the extreme bass note tuning pin segments with very sharp angles -- very Brambach -- and when I got down under it on the cushy carpet to deal with the noise from pedal rods completely unmuffled, I saw that trapwork was built into the top side of the keybed, and the pedal levers underneath were metal. DEFINITELY a Brambach! A mystery no more! I told my very interested customer all about how and why it was a Brambach, and why it had that serial number.

I ordered it a decal.

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Susan Kline
Philomath, Oregon

Original Message:
Sent: 06-22-2013 11:53
From: Cy Shuster
Subject: Brambach puzzler: two serial numbers

First visit to an old 5' Brambach grand. The first thing I notice is gated legs (6 vs. 3), often a player cabinet. It's been restrung, a while ago, and the paint on the plate is very faded. The arms are narrow, maybe just over an inch, all of which points to something in the 1920's. Beautiful white ivories.

A serial number is visible on the soundboard through a hole in the plate on the curved side, around 46,000, dating to 1954, which seemed odd to me, because the piano looked much older. There was no decal on the soundboard.

The action had the Brambach rectangular knuckles and weird jack, and also the upright-style soft pedal rail that lifts the hammers to the strings. The rail was split, to lift one half or both, but was not connected; it had the standard una corda shift pedal.  

Further review found a different serial number stamped into the belly rail, below the edge of the soundboard: 20,000! This dates to 1911, more like what my initial impression was. That number was also stamped under the piano somewhere (I forget). The keyed had a slot cut in it for a player, and two small packets of silica gel were stapled to it.

A technician had initialed and dated the plate in the treble with a date of 1966, and it looked like the pinblock had been replaced with the restringing (and torque was good).

So the puzzler is, what's the deal with that 46,000 number stamped into the soundboard? Could a tech actually have transplanted a 1954 board into a 1911 case?

--Cy--

-------------------------------------------
Cy Shuster, RPT
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.shusterpiano.com
http://www.facebook.com/shusterpiano

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P.S. As I remember, 250083 also had gated legs.

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Susan Kline
Philomath, Oregon


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Original Message:
Sent: 06-22-2013 11:53
From: Cy Shuster
Subject: Brambach puzzler: two serial numbers

First visit to an old 5' Brambach grand. The first thing I notice is gated legs (6 vs. 3), often a player cabinet. It's been restrung, a while ago, and the paint on the plate is very faded. The arms are narrow, maybe just over an inch, all of which points to something in the 1920's. Beautiful white ivories.

A serial number is visible on the soundboard through a hole in the plate on the curved side, around 46,000, dating to 1954, which seemed odd to me, because the piano looked much older. There was no decal on the soundboard.

The action had the Brambach rectangular knuckles and weird jack, and also the upright-style soft pedal rail that lifts the hammers to the strings. The rail was split, to lift one half or both, but was not connected; it had the standard una corda shift pedal.  

Further review found a different serial number stamped into the belly rail, below the edge of the soundboard: 20,000! This dates to 1911, more like what my initial impression was. That number was also stamped under the piano somewhere (I forget). The keyed had a slot cut in it for a player, and two small packets of silica gel were stapled to it.

A technician had initialed and dated the plate in the treble with a date of 1966, and it looked like the pinblock had been replaced with the restringing (and torque was good).

So the puzzler is, what's the deal with that 46,000 number stamped into the soundboard? Could a tech actually have transplanted a 1954 board into a 1911 case?

--Cy--

-------------------------------------------
Cy Shuster, RPT
Albuquerque, NM
http://www.shusterpiano.com
http://www.facebook.com/shusterpiano

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