Piano 75

Piano 75 was captured in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Carisbrooke, an old church of which more in due course.

Another first, in that this is the first Steck piano on record. According to reference 3, a substantial but now defunct company set up in New York in the 1850's by a German piano man who had emigrated to the new world. As an older man, he retired from business to invent a piano which did not need to be tuned - from where I associate to Einstein spending his retirement inventing the theory of everything. With neither venture coming to fruition.

A piano which must have spent a lot of its time shut, given the strength of the brown under the lid, compared with that elsewhere. 

According to the inscription underneath the maker's name, not legible in the snap, even when clicked and enlarged, it was originally sold by W. Teague & Co Ltd of Ryde, a company which appears to have been founded at about the time of the outbreak of the first world war, is alleged to survive at an address in Garfield Road in Ryde which is occupied, according to gmaps, by a firm of accountants. Described at companies house as dissolved and 'renting and operating of Housing Association real estate - Retail electric household, etc goods'. A rather curious description, but one which does stretch to selling pianos a hundred years ago. Perhaps the accountants are still collecting fees connected with winding the business up.

Odd that the church did not buy its piano in Newport, the county town, much nearer Carisbrooke than Ryde - although this last, to be fair, is rather bigger and grander (at least once upon a time) than Newport. But maybe Teague had a branch in Newport at the time of the purchase.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/piano-74.html.

Reference 2: http://carisbrookestmary.org.uk/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steck_(piano).

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