History

Welcome to the Baldwin Combo Harpsichord Project page. Herein is a dramatic story of trauma, hope and eventual redemption; or how I rescued a rare vintage instrument from the tyranny of a 4-year-old whose evil plans were to destroy it before it could could ever be fully honored.

Part I : The Discovery

One evening on a break at work I hit one of several local free classifieds (not craig's) and saw this advert:

My first hope was that I had miraculously stumbled onto a Hohner D6 for free. Trying not to crap my pants I called the number. As the woman on the line described the instrument and I was slightly disappointed. While we chatted I was searching the web looking for info but there was nothing. I told her I'd call her back if I were interested. And that was that...

I couldn't just let it go. I dug for details but only tracked down a vintage advertisement being sold on eBay for old Baldwin instruments. I posted to a forum that I follow for another project instrument that I rescued (1972 Fender Rhodes Suitcase), www.fenderhordes.com. I asked for help identifying the Baldwin. After a day or two someone posted a reply to my question with a link to some good info.

I was surprised to see the list of previous users, the Beatles, the Beach Boys...very cool. I put on the song Because from Abby Road to hear the instrument first hand. Needless to say my interest grew pretty quickly.

I dialed the seller back up and asked her if I could just have the instrument. After all, it was advertised for free or trade. 'Unfortunately, I don't own anything but a room full of broken old instruments,' I told her, 'nothing to trade.'

She told me something to the tune of, "if you want to drive out here you can have it. I haven't had any other interest."

Great! She lives an hour from me, but who cares? Let's roll!

Part II : First Encounter

I got my VW van ready to haul a sizeable instrument and headed out one morning. I got there and sure enough, a 1960s Baldwin Combo Harpsichord sat in the basement living room holding up a few pictures and a plastic plant on a lace doilie.

This experience was painful to me, so I'll recount it quickly. When I talked to the seller on the phone she jokingly said, "I just keep the thing around to let my grandkids pound on it."

I chuckled then. I didn't chuckle when I saw the 4-year-old boy pounding the keyboard. He was doing just what a 4-year-old boy always does, trying to break everything in sight, including the harpsichord.

I spent an hour inspecting the keyboard and all the while the boy was literally pounding on the keys, the plexiglas cover, kicking the legs, jumping on the crummy Fender Squire amp the harpsichord was plugged into. I was really going crazy watching it.

Eventually I deemed the instrument (which I really knew nothing about) to be savable. All the plectrum were miraculously intact, as were the steel strings. The only thing missing is the stereo volume pedal you see in a few of the half-dozen pictures of this instrument scattered around the web.

The seller assumed the instrument was broken because only half the switches worked on the preamp. But she had it going into a mono guitar amp so I figured it probably worked just fine.

She told me she got it from a married, closeted gay man; an orchestra teacher in Texas. "He hid it so well," she told me, "hardly anyone really knew!" She told him once in passing that she loved the 'harps a cord'. Several years later he died and willed it to her, along with a knitting machine.

She brought it out west in a move and along the way the wax holding the pickups melted from the intense heat of the moving van. Wax dripped all over the bright red soundboard, covering and silencing many of the strings.

Finally I asked the seller, "well, do you care if I take it away then?"

As her grandson alternated between clobbering the keys and kicking the amp she asked him, "will you be sad if you don't have the piano?"

"Yes! I'll be sad!"

She was excited by this and asked him, "if we get you lessons will you learn it?"

"Yes! I want to learn it!"

She turned to me and said, "Sorry. I've changed my mind. We're going to keep it. We'll consider a trade for a pool table if you have anything like that."

I sort of snapped and grabbed the kid's hands as he pounded on the keyboard and ordered him to stop. I told the owner that if even one of those plectrum broke the keyboard would be nearly worthless. I explained that the parts on harpsichord are rare and probably nearly impossible to find. They disagreed and I decided to just let it go, chalk it up to bad luck and wasted gas and just drive home.

She told me she'd take my name and phone number and if she didn't get any offers in the next month she think about dropping it off at my place. Okay, whatever.

I wrote my information on an envelope and she taped it to the keyboard before putting doilies and plastic plant on top of it.

For the record the woman and her husband selling the keyboard were extremely nice. I don't think she had really thought through the idea of getting rid of the harpsichord before I arrived. That's what spurred the last minute change of heart.

As I left it there I was trying to block out the sounds of the old instrument being beat to death when the seller said, "I'm thinking of painting it white..."

Sigh...

Part III : The Purchase

After my visit the advertisment was modified so the price said $150, rather than free or trade. I didn't care. I was done with it and basically crossed it off my mental list.

Several weeks passed, I went on vacation to Mexico, bought a house, schemed over other instruments (got a Univox PHZ-1 for $30). For some reason I didn't go back to the Fender Rhodes forum for a while.

Then one day, on a break at work, I popped in and noticed my harpsichord thread had been bumped. Someone had spotted an eBay sale of an old Baldwin Harpsichord with a Fender silverface amp. The auction ended for $3,333.

Now, at least $1,000 of that is the amp (which by its self was a dream). But the Harpsichord got some serious attention. It looked to be in really good shape, not like the one I had seen that was in poor condition.

Needless to say I picked my jaw up off the floor and decided to make a call. For some reason before the classified ad for the Harpsichord had expired I remembered to copy down the seller's phone number.

I called her back up. There had been no other buyers. I explained that I had $50 in birthday money, and would she take that for the Harpsichord.

She agreed.

Three days later I was driving home with a 1960s Baldwin Combo Harpsicord in the back of my old VW van.