Piano at O’Hare??

Gombessa thanks so much for sharing this! I’ve walked by the piano several times and it’s always been cordoned off. Amazing to see how dirty and poorly kept it was. But maybe next time I’m at ohare I’ll get a chance to play it!

Gombessa I’m also wondering if the glue gunk was really related to spilled alcoholic beverages. Every time I’ve been by, the piano has a different wrap, and I’m wondering if all the glue may instead be from the multiple wrapping procedures. Also those hammer grooves were pretty crazy! I wonder if someone’s actually been playing it or if they had the player system on a lot.

Sgisela I was wondering the same!

I think most common vinyl wraps are dry-applied. it's a film with a sticky backing that you peel and stick, and you don't need to "paint" on any glue. But there are a lot of exceptions, and some films use water and other liquids for a wet application (hopefully not on a piano!). That gummy goop all over the keys though, I have no idea what that is, or what kind of drinks would be that viscous after the alcohol and water evaporate. Is there a drink that's 2 cups of pure sugar mixed with a shot of Bacardi?

I remember there was discussion here about what kind of player system was installed, and I was glad to see in the video a closeup of the control module, showing it's a QRS. But the piano tech in the video doesn't seem to do much work with player/silent systems, and didn't talk about it at all. But you can see the plungers from the key solenoids sticking up from the back of the keybed cavity.

I think you're right that the piano must have a TON of player hours on it, at an airport I suspect they just had it self-play all day, every day until it stopped working!

The piano tuner in the video seems like a great guy. I've been watching his videos and he's a young guy trying really hard to build a new business around something he loves, and he share what he's learning, including how much he makes in typical day, etc. Really wishing him the best.

Sgisela
In the video you can read K1 032975. Assuming that's the model and serial number and that this site is correct, the piano would date back to the mid 1890s.

+1. A Kimball K1 is 5'1" according to old Piano Blue Book links. And this one has a more modern logo, used around the 1990s.

I did some googling and didn't find any Kimballs with the triangular/trapezoidal "sound holes" in the plate, which makes me wonder if this is actually a real, US-made Kimball from when they were still producing pianos up until 1996. Perhaps it's one of the dozens of brands where the name was sold to an Asian piano maker and re-imported in the 2000s?

Gombessa I had this same thought, although of all things one might decide to ‘stencil’ on a fall board, I’m not sure how much affection there is for Kimball.

I don’t really want to cast shade on Kimball. They made lots and lots of pianos, and my grandmother, who was a much better pianist than I am, inherited one and it was the piano she played for most of her life. I have very warm memories of her playing the piano. But I know it had all sorts of issues.

So....I got a little bit sucked into the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what this is.

It says Kimball, and it has a Langer action, which Kimball did own in the 90s. But there's a "2006" date visible on the back action:

And the action is labeled "Langer Accelerated Action:"

That appears to be a trademark filed in 2008 and first used in 2007.

The registering company, "Musical Properties, Inc." seems to have registered a number of piano-related trademarks in the 2000s, most of which were abandoned or cancelled. https://trademark.justia.com/784/39/marshall-78439113.html. Interestingly, among the more interesting ones is...Technics??

Technics has been around for over 50 years, and this TM application was in 2008, so it seems like this holding company just...tries to trademark abandoned names? Anyways, looks like a bit of a dead end.

But the distinctive triangular "sound holes" look like a lead, and very familiar:

A bit of searching yielded that Young Chang, and few of its sub-brands Pramberger, and Weber, use a very similar hole design and plate color. It's not exact, but it's darned close:

Not every detail matches, but it's pretty close, and the design details are much closer to the O'Hare piano than any of the Kimball designs I've seen.

So thus far, my guess is that this isn't a actually a Kimball, but rather some other piano rebranded as Kimball, maybe an early-2000s Asian model, likely one cheap enough to not include duplex scaling.

Anyways, that was my evening of uneducated sleuthing

ShiroKuro No you're right. It could be anything.

I was originally thinking 2006 aligns with the TM application somewhat, but then figured the TM date was a false lead, and thus the 2006 might not be anything, as you suspect.

From what little I've seen, the main reason it could be a real Kimball is the Langer action. And the main reason it might not be is because the plate is so distinctive from anything else from Kimball (and everything other than the fallboard has been debadged).

It's definitely a fun little mystery!