HTRMom Posted May 10, 2017 Share Posted May 10, 2017 My grandmother has an upright piano of fairly good quality. The piano is a ten-hour drive from where I live. I want the piano, she wants to get rid of the piano. I am sentimentally attached to it, I learned to play on it as a child. I called a piano moving company about moving it. They quoted $1000. Would you pay for that? See if a regular moving company would do it? Rent a trailer and drive it yourself? Decide it's not worth it and have her sell it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted May 10, 2017 Share Posted May 10, 2017 Has it been tuned recently? If it hasn't been used or tuned in many years, it may not be worth taking, even for free. Can you try it before you arrange to move it? 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMD Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 I agree with Catwoman, sometimes with old pianos the pins are too worn, the backboard can be cracked/warped. Many old pianos can't hold a tune and aren't worth saving as an instrument. That said, moving a piano and transporting it 10 hours, $1000 doesn't seem outside of reasonable to me. I've paid hundreds to have one moved 20 mins away... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arctic Bunny Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 After you see if it can be tuned.... call around to moving companies and see if anybody is making the trip anyway. I got mine picked up at my moms and moved 5 hours for $100 cash, because the movers were coming anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 Ten hour drive! Yikes! The $1000 sounds pretty reasonable for that. If you want to save money, get a small moving truck from U-Haul, hire piano movers at Gmas house to load it on the truck. Drive the 10 hours. Then, hire movers at your house to take it off the truck. For me, personally, it wouldn't be worth it. To me $1000 is a huge amount of money and though I'd be sad I'd have to let the piano go. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HTRMom Posted May 11, 2017 Author Share Posted May 11, 2017 It probably hasn't been tuned or played in at least a few years. Maybe I should get someone there to go out and look at it and tell me whether it's worth keeping? If it's not in tune, I don't think I could decide whether it will sound better once it's tuned, or if it's too worn down. I've been looking around for a couple of months and I think I'm going to have to pay $500-$2000 to buy a used piano of any quality here (retail or Craigslist) and move it to my house, and assuming this piano is still good, I would rather have that one for a similar amount of money. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arctic Bunny Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 Maybe get a piano tuner to look at it first? But then, by the time you pay for that on both ends.... I would really call around and see if anyone is coming your way anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMD Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 Do you know what make/model it is? I would call a local to you piano dealer, some times they also do restorations and bring in older pianos to work on, you might get lucky if they have room on a truck going your way. They can also usually recommend a local tuner and give you advice about the likelihood of that piano being worth it. A good piano dealer can be a fantastic resource. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted May 11, 2017 Share Posted May 11, 2017 (edited) nm Edited May 18, 2017 by _ -_- 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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