Walking down memory lane this morning, and thinking about my piano shopping experiences back in 2019ā¦
When I was piano shopping, on my first day of official piano shopping, the first piano I played I absolutely fell in love with. It was a used Feurich grand. But I wasnāt ready to buy, I hadnāt been expecting to find something Iād like to much so quickly, and IIRC, I hadnāt really even measured my space and all of that. So I went home that day, pretty much convinced Iād be buying that Feurich.
We went back the next weekend, and I played it again and was just like āmeh.ā I was shocked, actually. Whatever it was that pulled me into that piano was gone. As you can imagine, I didnāt buy it.
But that experience lead me to make a rule for myself: I would not buy any piano on my first trip to play it. I would always absolutely āsleep on itā and go back and play it a second time before committing. (I also implemented this rule when we started house hunting the second time, insisting on having more than one showing for every house we liked. That lead us to losing a house, but because we lost that house, we ended up in the house weāre in now, which in retrospect, is a better house! š sorry for the thread drift!)
Anyway, I continued piano shopping after making that āsleep on itā rule for myself, and one day, I played a Boston grand at a used dealerās shop. It was beautiful, I loved how it sounded so much. The dealer told me heād give me X discount (I donāt remember how much at this point) if I bought it that day. I donāt remember if he required a deposit but it was basically ābuy it right now and Iāll give you this great discount.ā I told him about my āsleep on itā rule and he assured me that he would not give me that discount if I didnāt buy the piano that day, even if the piano hadnāt sold yet.
I went home. The shop was about a 2.5 hour drive from my house. IIRC, I thought I might go back and try to play it the next weekend, and I thought (naively) that if he still hadnāt sold the piano, he would give that discount. But since the shop was so far away, I called first.
No, he had not sold the piano yet. Great. Would he give me that discount? Nope.
We actually had a very unpleasant conversation on the phone where he got nasty about it and I told him he was being ridiculous and hung up.
I eventually bought my Yamaha C2 (Yay!)
And wouldnāt you know it, some months later, he called me to ask if I was still in the market for a grand piano. I was very happy to tell him that not only had I already purchased one, but even if I hadnāt, I would never buy a piano from a dealer like him.
Sorry for the long story, but thatās why I hate pushy dealers. š