Steinway & Sons along with Mason & Hamlin and Baldwin are easily the best known names in pianos built in North America. Today all three companies continue to build quality pianos using the traditional American piano materials. Of the three Steinway & Sons and Manson & Hamlin are still built by hand in The USA. Hollywood Piano is not an authorized dealer of new Steinways but has a great selection of pre-owned and used Steinway Pianos in our Burbank & Pasadena showrooms. We are the authorized dealer for the Los Angeles area of the other two major American piano brands Baldwin and Mason & Hamlin.
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Why are the new Hamburg Steinway pianos better? There are a number of reasons. First, craftsmanship in the German factory is at a much higher level today than in the New York factory. This was not always the case. Henry Engelhard (Steinweg) Steinway left Germany and the Steinweg Piano Company which he founded (Later known as Grotrian-Steinweg when Fredrich Grotrian joined Theodore Steinweg) and moved to New York founding Steinway & Sons anglicizing his name.
How good were these “Golden Age” pianos? We’ll let Steinway’s own words from their 2009 Annual Report speak for us: "Because Steinway pianos are built to last for generations, a relatively large market exists for used Steinways. It is difficult to estimate the significance of used piano sales because most are conducted in the private aftermarket. However, we believe that used Steinway pianos provide the most significant competition in the high end of the piano market."
Rebuilt Steinways that come from a time when someone with that famous last name was actually overseeing things rebuild marvelously if meticulously restored by expert craftsmen. It’s very important to understand who is doing the rebuilding work. Just as there are auto mechanics in almost every gas station, there are also "piano re-builders" working out of garages, basements, storage units and warehouses. The corner gas station mechanic might make 40K a year while a mechanic in a custom auto shop might make 6 figures. The same is true of Steinway re-builders. Unfortunately far too many are like the 40k a year mechanic versus the six figure mechanic. Unfortunately a lot of their pianos are inferior rebuilds that are lacking in quality of materials and craftsmanship and most importantly nine times out of ten, musicality. The bottom line is, when you get a high quality rebuilt Steinway piano finished by a quality piano company it will last a lifetime, perform on par or better than some new Steinways at prices that are thousands of dollars less. It’s no wonder that Steinway itself fears the competition of their pre-owned pianos.
In our opinion if we were to commission a poll today of high end piano re-builders nationwide and ask them which parts they’d rather rebuild a piano with, Steinway New York or Renner Germany the responses would be overwhelmingly for Renner. If you are rebuilding a modern Steinway piano one could and in some cases should use the New York parts as an option. But because the dimensions of the parts used in Steinway pianos has changed significantly over the decades If you put current “genuine New York Steinway” parts into a “Golden Age” piano you won't necessarily get the best result. The New York factory only makes and sells the parts for the modern/current pianos. The Renner Company on the other hand makes a kit with different sizes of dimensionally correct Steinway & Sons piano parts covering all of the changes in specification, designs and models that Steinway has built over the last 160 plus years. The worst thing one could do to a vintage heirloom piano is rebuild it with brand new non-dimensionally correct New York parts. 
The investment value of a Steinway will not only come from the name on the front but from how accurately the piano has been restored. At Hollywood Piano we offer three collections.
If you’re in the market for a Steinway, make sure that you come to take a look at our collections.
