In my efforts to make sure we got the best piano for the best deal possible, I discovered four different kinds of ways to buy a piano. I gave each of them their best shot, and took the deal that suited me best.

1. The Gray Market
It sounds sinister, but the gray market for pianos actually is on the level. Essentially, this is an secondary market for used Japanese pianos in the U.S. (unauthorized and discouraged but not prohibited by the manufacturers, who would rather sell you a new piano). See, for some weird cultural reason, Japanese people don't believe in buying used pianos. When a Japanese person has to get rid of a piano, he just throws it out on the curb or something and waits for the garbage man to come get it. No, really, what happens is because he can't sell his piano to another Japanese person in Japan, he sells it to a gray market dealer. The piano is then shipped across the Pacific Ocean and lands at a "Used Piano Store" near you.

I discovered our local gray market dealer before I learned what the gray market is.* It was the first store we went to, a 45-minute drive from here in Maryland. They advertised incredibly low prices on used pianos, and when we got there, the prices did not disappoint. But I was perplexed as to why 80% of what they had were Yamahas and Kawais from the 1980s. Answer: gray market. These instruments had been used in Japan for 20 years, and are hoping to find new life on this continent. I played a lot of pianos, found a 1979 Kawai that I particularly liked the sound of, but in the end decided that I wanted something a little newer, even if it was still somewhat used. A 30-year-old piano is going to last about 30 years less than a new piano, and I want this piano to last till I die (hopefully more than 30 years from now).

2. The University Piano Sale
You may have noticed advertisements from time to time for your local university selling off its old-model pianos to make way for the new. "Wow," you think. "These are one-year-old pianos that have been maintained at a university, and sure maybe they've gotten more use than normal in a year (what with being constantly pounded by an endless stream of music majors in the practice rooms), this should be a really good deal."

I found such a sale at American University right in the middle of my piano search. I had to try it out just to see what it was like, because these events tend to be secretive. Or at least I'd never talked to anyone who'd been to one before.

Here's the deal: you might as well walk into a regular retail piano store. These events are actually coordinated with a piano retailer (in my case, the large local chain Jordan Kitt's), and the university trades the cache of its good name for new pianos, and the piano store gets to host a sale on campus to make you think there's something special going on.

In the first place, I was disappointed with the small selection, especially of grand pianos. There were only a couple that were seriously worth looking at. Secondly, of the pianos that were there, only a small fraction of them were actually what they called "graduates" -- that is, pianos that had been used at the university for the last year. Most of the pianos were brand new, hauled in just for this special occasion, and others were used but not university-used pianos. And thirdly, this was an even more high-pressure situation than any piano store I went into. The piano store employees try to convince you that if you don't decide to take this piano RIGHT NOW the deal will vanish and you'll live in a cloud of bleak despair and never be happy again.

Granted, the pianos were actually somewhat discounted from their regular retail price. But I didn't find the discounts all that outstanding, and based on the Jordan Kitt's documentation I was privy to, it appears the pianos had the same price they have at every sales event. Really the only difference was that you're in a university music building and there's pressurepressurepressure. The only way I got them to leave me alone was to promise to think about it and call them back in the morning.

I'm glad I did, because I wouldn't have gotten as good of a deal as I got using the other two of the four piano shopping methods in tandem...

(To be continued...)

* To learn what the gray market is, and everything else there possibly is to know about buying a piano, read -- nay, study -- Larry Fine's "The Piano Book." Simply having it in my possession at piano stores made the salespeople take me seriously.