Featured Silent exercise piano

Has anyone come across one of these? I got this in a charity shop today but didn't know what it was. After a bit of googling I discovered that it is a silent or mute piano for practicing dating. I found a couple by the same maker - one in a museum and one on a closed auction site but they were both slightly bigger than mine. I bought it out of curiosity and paid very little for it.

 

I gives you a full chord to play around with, but you better have a dynamite imagination.

 

Here's another one for sale on a Spanish web site.

Debora

 

Great concept, wish my kids would have had silent exercise violas about 20 yrs ago

 

It's an odd little thing, isn't it? Just one octave and can only practice with one hand at a time.

Debora

 

Thanks - all the ones online are a fair bit bigger than mine. It is an odd thing - I never can resist a curiosity! Trouble is now that I've discovered what it is I don't know what to do with it! Try and sell it on I suppose though it will be very heavy to send if I go down the Ebay route. This is how my house (and garage) ends up full of "stuff", much to my husband's despair!

 

I'm pretty sure many of us are similarly burdened, LL...I'm your poster child for picking up odd things without any good reason, save to possess the oddity. Sigh...

 

I'm a pianist and have never heard of a silent piano.

Forget the antique business, I think silent instruments could be a real money maker!

Beethoven did when his piano "went silent"... Not much hope for the rest of us though!

As you say Lucylocket, the few examples online are much bigger than this.
I wonder, could it be a salesman's sample for piano makers? Of ivory keys used for a piano? Just a wild guess.

A total curiosity no matter what. If reasonably priced, I would have bought this in a heartbeat for the oddity factor. Maybe some music museum would have ideas if we don't get any leads here.

 

mobilgrave

the company made these for a purpose...... not a sample..