See Music Trades Magazine Article on Page 48
When a celebrity piano is sold privately, for reasons pf privacy there are usually non-disclosure agreements entered into to prevent the actual sales price from becoming public knowledge.
Piano Finders is a piano rebuilding, appraising, and brokering service located in the San Francisco Bay Area. In business now for 37 years, and having appraised thousands of pianos, -including many celebrity pianos, Piano Finders has, until now, not been able to publicly reveal the appraisal and sale prices of celebrity pianos, nor what they actually sold for in the private market.
But this last November (2018), Piano Finders brokered a private sale they finally can talk about, an Elton John Red Piano Limited Edition Model DC6 7’ Disklavier grand that sold for $240,000. – 3 times what it sold for new.
There were only 50 of these Special Limited Edition “Elton John Red Piano Show” commemorative pianos ever made. They are finished in “maraschino cherry red” -just like the pianos used by Elton John in his Las Vegas “Red Piano” show. Edition A consisted of 30 grand pianos, of various models and sizes anywhere from 5’ 3” up to 7 ’6” in length. Because of the success of the “A” Edition, and the great demand for these pianos, Yamaha decided to issue later, also, an Edition “B” consisting of 20 additional grands, again in varying sizes. The pianos sold new from $54,000. for the smallest Model DC1 grand, up to $90,000., -for the largest 7’ 6” Model DC7 grand. (Proceeds from the sale of the instruments when new went to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.)
“This is not the highest price this limited edition has sold for, but it is the one I can talk about”, says Karen Lile, piano appraiser and broker, and co-owner of Piano Finders. Kendall Ross Bean, a concert pianist and master piano rebuilder, and also co-owner, along with Lile, of Piano Finders, is often called in to document and assess the condition of a celebrity piano. With inspection reports furnished by Bean, -and often from other piano experts as well, Lile establishes the instrument’s value based on market research and a knowledge of past private and auction sales. This particular Elton John edition of pianos has sold for this price or higher several times now. And bidders on private auctions have told of the pianos selling for up to $185,000 five years ago.
The buyer of this particular Elton John Red piano, -that sold for $240,000-, attended an Elton John Red Piano Show concert in Las Vegas with his dad. When his dad passed away, he had it on his wish list to buy one, even though the special limited edition was sold out 10 years ago. (Most owners of these Elton John Special Edition Red pianos are extremely reluctant to part with the one they own, but they have contacted Piano Finders over the years to check in on values.)
Celebrity pianos increase in value for a number of reasons. But for these particular Elton John “Red” pianos, the mass marketing for Elton John’s Farewell Tour, the movie “Rocketman” and the “Lion King” movie and Broadway play are contributing factors. Yamaha, the maker of the Elton John Red Piano Limited Edition pianos had the foresight to design a series with Elton John, before 2005, that really appealed to collectors. The pianos have an electronic player piano mechanism that performs 5 Elton John songs, with recordings of Elton himself, singing and performing his own compositions. Just like with a player piano, the piano’s keys move up and down to John’s recorded vocal and orchestral accompaniment. The music desk of each piano was personally signed by Elton John, in a large gold signature. A brass plaque on the fallboard of each piano notes the pianos Edition (A or B) and its number within the edition (e.g. “8” out of “30”.)