Shipping Services

Frequently asked questions about shipping:

“How in the world do I ship a heavy piano hundreds of miles to get it restored?”
“Doesn’t shipping cost too much to send a piano to you for restoration?”

How do we do it?

The answer is pretty simple. We contract very special piano shippers who are well equipped and highly experienced. Our clients are amazed to witness the ease and efficiency of these movers! Because of the high volume of instruments we move coast to coast, we are able to ship a piano to or from any destination within the Continental United States for about $2,100 on average. Rather than inflating our wholesale shipping costs for profit, we pass our wholesale shipping rate along directly to our customers.

*Please note that local moves are less while Canadian, Hawaiian and International shipping rates are higher and are quoted on a case-by-case basis. Stairs, sharp turns, and otherwise difficult maneuvers are quoted on a case-by-case basis.

Wholesale shipping rates apply to Antique Piano Shop customers only.

During the Victorian era, pianos and organs were shipped by the only means available – freight train, riverboat, and horse & buggy. Over the years we have heard countless stories of the family piano being shipped down the Mississippi River by steamboat or hauled across the Arizona desert by horse & buggy. Imagine the elements that these pianos were subject to! These instruments would often spend months on end in the heat and cold being moved at a snails pace from one destination to another before finally reaching their new homes. In our ephemera collection, we see dozens of testimonials from customers talking about how their pianos traveled hundreds of miles by these crude means of transportation, only to arrive safe and sound, and in perfect tune! That alone is a testament to the quality and durability of these antique instruments.

Old-timers tell us the story of how they used to take a wagon with a piano loaded on the back and venture out into the countryside, only to pretend to have a wheel or axle “about to break” in front of a rural farmhouse. As a favor, the farmer’s family would allow the salesman to leave his piano in the home for safe-keeping while the salesmen took the wagon for repair – often over a period of several days. More often than not, the salesman would return to find that the farmer’s daughters had taken a liking to the piano while he was gone! Imagine how many pianos were sold this way, all unbeknownst to the farmer and his wife!

By the ‘teens and ‘twenties, pianos were still being shipped from major industrial areas by train, but the introduction of the automobile made home delivery a much easier task. Early trucks were equipped with special piano lifting mechanisms that would allow one man to load a piano at the factory, transport it to the suburbs and countryside, and unload it in the yard to demonstrate to a potential buying customer.

Today, piano moving is somewhat of a science, if not an art to itself. There are a handful of specialized freight companies that move nothing but pianos & organs across country and internationally. These companies have all the necessary experience, equipment, and knowledge necessary to make sure that pianos are safely moved from the factory to your home without damage or difficulty. It is amazing how easy they can make it look!