When we were looking for a reasonably priced vintage one, many years ago, it was recommended that we make sure that we find one with a steel harp, rather than one of wood, because the wood ones were a bugger to keep in tune. Personally I like Nordheimers and Heinzmans, but here are many others, highly recommended in the article.

Had I known that we would move our Nordheimer for our daughter, three times in the past year, I think we might have reconsidered and looked for an electric piano instead, many years ago.

One thing I do not agree with in the article, having searched and played about 100 upright pianos finding one for our daughter, Hannah, is that a larger piano is a better piano. There are far more factors at play than size and it is like saying a large guitar is better than a small one. This is complete nonsense. After extensive research, the model we chose was a secondhand small sized Zimmerman (German) piano which gave the best balance betwen playability, sound, aesthetics and quality of action and parts. I bought from a dealer in this case, rather than privately, but nevertheless was able to negotiate and got a good deal (if we ever decide to upgrade to a more expensive piano, she will take back and give us an allowance equivalent to what we paid for the Zimmerman).

Regarding makes, I tend to prefer the "German" sound personally. We also tried some English, Belgian and French brands, modern, used and vintage. There were some truly beautiful looking French vintage pianos which would have made fabulous pieces of furniture but our daughter did not like the action. If you are in the USA, you will also have a wide variety of US brands to choose from.

My advice would be to try as many as possible, take the various factors mentioned above into account and choose the one that gives the best overall balance of desirable qualities in your price range.

Best regards,

mooman

P.S. Hannah started on a Roland synth, which she still uses for fun, but these do not generally have the necessary touch sensitivity and weighting of keys necessary for real progress. You can buy a digital piano with properly weighted and touch sensitive keys but for the high price you'd be better off with the real thing IMHO.

For easiest playing, try to find one with a nice progressive break on the keys. Some, you find that you press the key down and nothing happens, and down a bit more and nothing happens, then down a gnat's tail-feather and *BONG* the thing kicks out a fortissimo note! I'm sure this is great for honky-tonk piano where you don't play softly, but if you want to play loud and soft (piano-forte :-) then it's less than ideal.

Also, make sure that action is positive, so you can feel the hammers moving as you press the keys. Same kind of thing as choosing a computer keyboard really, how much weight you want on the keys, and it does come down to personal preference.

Play every key, and make sure it's OK. If there's buzzes or rattles, then something's wrong with the piano - this may be a split in the soundboard, so don't buy it. If there's thuds or the key feels odd, there may be a problem in the mechanism (hammer/keys loose, etc) which needs fixing.

Buying from a dealer is safer. At the low end price, the pianos will be old. After some time, the tuning pegs get worn out and start to slip. The only remedy for this is to spend lots of money putting wooden plugs in the holes and then redrilling all the holes - this is expensive. If you buy from a dealer, then you can go back and threaten them if the piano tuner tells you this - if you buy privately then it's your risk.

Graham.