Chickering Piano Where Is The Serial Number

10/8/2019 admin

As part of our ongoing research, the Chickering Foundation maintains a registry of all extant or known Chickering pianos from before 1890 of which it becomes aware. To have your pre-1890 Chickering (serial numbers below 100,000) included in the Registry, send an email to info@chickeringfoundation.org. Include as much information as possible, including the type of piano, the serial number, dimensions, number of octaves (compass), number of pedals, etc. The most notable contribution of Chickering and Sons piano manufacturing, to the development of piano technology, is their introduction of a one-piece cast iron plate to support the greater string tension of larger pianos. Jonas Chickering also invented a new deflection of the strings and in 1845 the first convenient method for over stringing in square pianos.

Chickering Piano Where Is The Serial Number Code
Chickering Piano Serial Number 174764
Chickering Piano Value

The age of your piano is determined by the Serial Number. Pianos also have numbers other than serial numbers, such is the case with part or patent numbers. Some pianos do not have serial numbers when they are manufactured as 'House Brands' for large retailers.
On some models of Chickering pianos the serial number can be found by removing the four screws under the very front of the piano and removing the piece of wood covering the front of the keys.
Here are the TOP FIVE places to locate the serial number of your spinet, console, or upright piano: Serial number locations are found: 1) On the piano’s cast iron plate. After lifting up the lid, look along the top front area of the plate. The serial number may be to the right or the left, or in the middle. 2) Under the opened lid on the ledge, stamped on a little plaque, to the right or to the left. 3) Stamped on the back of the piano; near the top of the wood frame.
On some models of Chickering pianos the serial number can be found by removing the four screws under the very front of the piano and removing the piece of wood covering the front of the keys.

Chickering & Sons
Subsidiary
Industry	Musical instruments
Founded	1823 in Boston, Massachusetts
Founder	Jonas Chickering
Defunct	1983; 36 years ago
Headquarters	,
Products	Pianos
Parent	Gibson

While Chickering’s serial numbers generally appear only once per piano, case numbers appear in numerous (usually not prominent) locations. Additionally, unlike the serial numbers, which were applied chronoligically and not reused, 1 Chickering’s case numbers do not appear to follow any order and were recycled.

Chickering & Sons was an American piano manufacturer located in Boston, Massachusetts, known for producing award-winning instruments of superb quality and design. The company was founded in 1823 by Jonas Chickering and James Stewart, but the partnership dissolved four years later. By 1830 Jonas Chickering became partners with John Mackay, manufacturing pianos as 'Chickering & Company', and later 'Chickering & Mackays' until the senior Mackay's death in 1841, and reorganized as 'Chickering & Sons' in 1853. Chickering pianos continued to be made until 1983.

History[edit]

Jonas Chickering, founder.

It was P.T. Barnum who persuaded Jenny Lind - the Swedish Nightingale - to make a concert tour of the United States. After her agreement, Barnum commissioned the Chickering company to manufacture a custom grand piano for her nationwide tour, ultimately involving 93 performances. The piano was completed by August 1850; Lind arrived in September and the concert series began in Boston. Her pianist was Otto Goldschmidt, whom she married at the end of her tour.

Coincidentally, as the tour began, Henry E. Steinway (Steinweg) and his large family arrived in New York as immigrants from Germany. Henry attended the opening night of the NYC concert series but showed little interest in the diva. His profound interest was in the Chickering piano, to which he dashed for such careful examination that he nearly had to be hauled away so the concert could begin.

On December 1, 1852, a massive fire destroyed Chickering's piano factory located at 336 Washington Street in Boston. One policeman was killed. The walls of the building collapsed, and set adjoining structures on fire. A new factory was built in 1853-54 at 791 Tremont Street in Boston. From 1860-1868 space in the building was the location of the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company, who made over 100,000 rifles and carbines for the U.S. Army and sportsmen from 1862-1868.^[1] This structure still stands today. It was renovated into artist studios in 1972.^[2]

Jonas Chickering made several major contributions to the development of piano technology, most notably by introducing a one-piece, cast-iron plate to support the greater string tension of larger grand pianos. He also invented a new deflection of the strings, and in 1845 the first convenient method for over stringing in square pianos. Instead of setting the strings side by side, the company introduced substituting an arrangement of the string in two banks, one over the other. This not only saved space but brought the powerful bass strings directly over the most resonant part of the sound-board, a principle used to this day in the construction of all pianos, both grands and uprights.

Chickering was the largest piano manufacturer in the United States in the middle of the 19th century, but was surpassed in the 1860s by Steinway. In 1867, Jonas's son Frank Chickering had the Imperial Cross of the Legion of Honour, then one of the world's most prestigious non-military awards, bestowed upon him by Emperor Napoleon III for services to the art of music, one of more than 200 awards the piano manufacturer garnered over the years.

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The company became in 1908 part of the American Piano Company (Ampico),^[3] and continued after the merger in 1932 of American with the Aeolian Company, to form Aeolian-American. That company went out of business in 1985, and the Chickering name continued to be applied to new pianos produced by Wurlitzer and then the Baldwin Piano Company. The brand is now defunct.

Chickering Halls[edit]

The firm commissioned and operated several concert halls in Boston and New York:

Chickering's building, Boston (c. 1850s), no.334 Washington St.^[4]
Chickering's Hall, Boston (1860-1870), no.246 Washington St.^[5]
Chickering Hall concert auditorium, 130 5th Avenue, New York City (1877), designed by George B. Post, and the venue for Oscar Wilde's first lecture in America in 1882 (razed) ^[6]^[7]
Chickering Hall, Boston (1883-c. 1894), no.152 Tremont St., near West St.^[8]
Chickering Hall, Boston (1901-c. 1912), Huntington Ave., corner of Massachusetts Ave.^[4]
Chickering Hall, 27 West 57th Street, NYC (1923), designed by Cross & Cross (1924)^[9]