Hand Made Pianos

Of all the pianos made in the world every year---over 200,000---

There are a single-digit percentage that can be called hand-made: all of the major construction operations are done by humans, in a one-off basis, consuming many hundreds of man-hours. This is why these hand-made pianos can be as much as 30 times as expensive as their mass-manufactured "poor relations." The question is: are they worth the money?

If you are a serious player, or a well-off one, the verdict is in: the sale of high-end, hand-made pianos is soaring, even in these rocky financial times. 

Here's a fairly complete list of the pianos that are hand-built:

-Hamburg Steinway (Germany)

-Bosendorfer (Germany)

-Steingraeber (Germany)

-Bluthner (Germany)

-Fazioli (Italy)

-New York Steinway (US)

-Shigeru Kawai (Japan)

-Yamaha CF & S series (Japan)

-Feurich (Germany)

-Sauter (Germany) 

The making of these hand-built pianos is done in relatively small batches, and is incredibly labor-intensive; almost all the hand-made manufacturers prepare their pianos to a high degree before they leave the factory, leaving less chance for the pianos to be set up lazily or improperly in the field, because they know that qualified, gifted artisan piano technicians are few and far between in the real world.