Steinway K 1903 Vertegrand

The Model K or "Vertegrand" is an upright piano introduced in 1903 by Steinway & Sons. It is the oldest essentially unchanged upright piano design currently in mass production. Although production was interrupted from about 1939 until its reappearance in 1982, the structural design has remained essentially the same for well over a century.

Notable Vertegrands include a vintage 1905 piano named in honor of British pianist Mrs Mills, which has remained in use at Abbey Road Studios for over 50 years. Its characteristic out-of-tune honky-tonk sound appears on numerous Abbey Road recordings, including some by The Beatles.

Our Model K (SN 118946) is in overall excellent shape considering its age — 117 years old! The case is beautiful with only minor scratches. It is, however, missing one small piece of decorative vertical wood paneling on the front right; there is a matching piece in-tact on the front left (see pics). All the ivory / ebony keys are original and in good condition. The bench is not original but is included.

It has been well-cared-for over the years, and it contains a hidden humidity regulator (plug-in) on bottom right. In August 2018, we had some work done on it by a local Steinway expert, who fixed a crack in the rear (in pics), re-pinned everything, and professionally cleaned it and tuned it. Currently, some keys are sticking so it does need to have some parts upgraded.

Local pick up from New Paltz, NY, about 90 miles from NYC.

Some interesting production history from Wikipedia:

The Steinway Vertegrand, also known as the Model K, was designed by Steinway director Henry Ziegler and introduced in 1903 at a cost of $500, equivalent to $14,228 in 2019. The name "Vertegrand" displayed along the top of the iron frame reflected the instrument's size relative to Steinway's then-current lineup; at 52 inches (132 cm), it was smaller than the 54.3-inch (138 cm) "Upright Grand" scale (Model I in New York; Model R in Hamburg) introduced in 1894, but larger than the 49-inch (125 cm) scale that would later become the Model V.

A 1910 advertisement in the New-York Tribune described the piano as "the embodiment of scientific research and musical progress of the Twentieth Century." Gustav Mahler said that he "never imagined that an upright piano could be constructed which would satisfy a musician's requirements in every respect."

The American Model K was discontinued in the wake of the Great Depression in 1930, but the Hamburg factory continued making the model, although by the 1930s the term "Vertegrand" had disappeared from the casting of the iron frames of the Hamburg pianos and was replaced by the hand-painted comment Erzeugnis der Steinway-Werke Hamburg-Altona, which translates to "Product of the Steinway Factory in Hamburg-Altona." Production continued in Hamburg until the Hamburg Steinway factory was seized for war-related production around the time of the Allied firebombing in 1943, which destroyed all of the factory's records.