Piano Selling Tips For Selling Your Piano The Right Way

If you have a piano you wish to sell, consider these pointers.

Clean up your piano

Wipe the finish with a soft, damp cloth and then dry the finish. Don’t use oils or polishes and never spray anything on or around the piano. Clean the keys with a cloth and a warm, mild soapy solution. Pull the cloth toward you as you clean the keys.

Determine a fair value for  your piano

Search the internet for similar pianos for sale. Go to local piano stores to get a feel for piano pricing. There isn’t a very large price range for most basic, used pianos, but you still want a point of reference.

Determine your piano’s pitch deviation

A properly tuned “middle A” is at 440 Hz. If “middle A” is more than 20 cents flat (approximately 435 Hz), the piano is entering the range of a potential pitch raise situation. It is also possible that a piano has dropped so far in pitch that it can only be partially raised toward the correct pitch at the first tuning. This typically occurs when a piano has dropped greater than 100% in pitch.

Here are links to apps you can install on your phone to help determine how far your piano has dropped in pitch.

iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-chromatic-tuner-pano-tuner/id449780743?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.cohortor.gstrings&hl=en

If your piano has severely dropped in pitch, you may help your sale by having the pitch raised. There is a fine line between spending too much on the piano prior to selling it and selling it when it sounds horrible, but it depends on your asking price.

Advertise your piano

CraigsList and Facebook are great places to advertise your piano for sale. Be sure to include photos of front view, side view, keyboard, and if you can, raise the lid and get a photo looking inside. Include all the helpful information you can, such as a) do all keys play, b) when it was last tuned, is there anything that does not work or is missing, broken, etc. Honesty is the best policy!

NOTE: Sadly, there are scammers out there who are listing pianos for sale/donate as well. Some things you can do to protect yourself are to use temporary or fake email addresses and phone numbers. Facebook is safer than CraigsList because you can insist that you access their personal FB page to see how old their page is and how many friends they have over the years.

Make sure these items are in your posting or ad!
– Make, model, style
– Age of piano
– How you wish to be contacted
– Height, width, depth of piano
– Disclose if anything does not work
– Does piano include bench?
– When piano was last tuned
– Does piano include bench?
– Indicate if piano must be gone by certain date