Dates of Sticker Actions

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Bill Kibby
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Dates of Sticker Actions

Post by Bill Kibby »

I wonder if any of you out there are tuning or repairing uprights with the dreaded sticker actions? If so, you may be able to help me. This is one of two evolutionary lines for uprights, and mainly associated with Victorian Cottage Pianos, which died the death suddenly in the 1880s. The latest example I have been able to date is 1887 and although I find myself quoting people who told me years ago that sticker actions were still in limited use in the early 1900s, I can't find one single example that is positively dated after 1887. In this plan of my piano time-line, the pianos coloured red almost all have sticker actions, bichord stringing, and London legs. Wornum's 1826 check action (green) was copied and improved in French Pianinos, and these were so successful that London makers (who had ignored Wornum's idea) soon began making copies of the French Pianinos. In spite of the huge variations in check actions made in the late 1800s, it was virtually Wornum's design that lived on to become the norm for modern uprights.
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