Piano appraisal

[isasir]

Figure I'll try posting this on ATOT, since it's users have a wide range of knowledge.

I have an old piano, which I'm thinking of selling. We got the piano when we had bought the house. I know jack about pianos besides the fact that this piano measures LxWxH of 63"x27"x56".
I could get an appraisal done for $40, which isn't too bad. However, this other appraiser I had called up basically said a piano of those dimensions (ie: I guess it's an old upright piano), sells for hardly anything, since they're just too big. (He said from $0 to a couple hundred dollars if tuned, which this isn't)

Can anyone here confirm what that guy said, or should I just go ahead and get the appraisal?

Thanks.

 

[gopunk]

what kind is it? brandwise...

 

[isasir]

/me runs downstairs to check....

Emerson

If I had to guess, it's perhaps 25 yrs. old, tho' I could be totally off on that.

 

[StinkyMeat]

Why are you getting rid of it? Taking up too much space? A piano in the house is definitely a plus IMO. Why don't you try to learn piano, I guarentee that will be more valuable than any amount of money you'll be getting for it.

 

[johnjohn320]

PianoWorld.com can tell you how old your piano is, provided you can provide a brand (emerson) and model no.

Don't take what some guy says over the phone and just leave it at that. Kill two birds with one stone-call up a good piano tuner/technician, have him come out and tune it up and appraise it for ya. I'm not saying the guy on the phone wasn't right, but like any other expensive thing, you should really have someone actually look at it.

Keep in mind, if he's right about the $0 bit, you could always do a good deed and donate it to a local school or something.

 

[flot]

I agree with JohnJohn. Call around, get a reasonable quote and have a piano tuner come out and tune it. While he's there try to see if you can figure out how much the piano would be worth, and go from there. Worst case, you're stuck with a tuned piano, right? hehehe. (of course, I have no idea how much a piano-tuning costs....)

Of course, before all that, try to find the model # and then plug it into some search engines, you may find someone else selling theirs!

 

[MomAndSkoorbaby]

Yup, get it turned and then appraised. You might be surprised or you may want to just keep it!

 

[isasir]

Originally posted by: StinkyMeat
Why are you getting rid of it? Taking up too much space? A piano in the house is definitely a plus IMO. Why don't you try to learn piano, I guarentee that will be more valuable than any amount of money you'll be getting for it.

We've had the piano for about 10 yrs. actually. The hope was that perhaps at least one of us in the family would take a big interest in it, but alas that didn't happen. It's actually been moved twice (not a fun task) to two diff't houses.

 

[johnjohn320]

Originally posted by: flot
I agree with JohnJohn. Call around, get a reasonable quote and have a piano tuner come out and tune it. While he's there try to see if you can figure out how much the piano would be worth, and go from there. Worst case, you're stuck with a tuned piano, right? hehehe. (of course, I have no idea how much a piano-tuning costs....)

Of course, before all that, try to find the model # and then plug it into some search engines, you may find someone else selling theirs!

Tuning: $50-80, probably. Could vary, I'm just going on what I and others I know seem to pay for it.