American Made Pianos

An Outstanding Manufacturing Tradition

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Chase & Baker

Factory Location: Buffalo, New York
Serial Number Dates: 1885 - 1965

History:

The Chase & Baker Piano Company was established in began making pianos in the mid 1880s. Production lasted all the way into the mid 1960s. The brandname was eventually assumed by both the Settergren Piano Company and the Estey Piano Company.

 

Information source: Pierce Piano Atlas

The Resonance of a Continent: The American Piano Tradition

The American piano manufacturing tradition is a story of unparalleled craftsmanship meeting the boundless natural resources of a new world. At its heart lies the selection of materials—most notably the vast, old-growth spruce forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast. These superior stands of Sitka and Adirondack spruce provided the tight-grained, resonant timber essential for crafting the world’s finest soundboards, offering a tonal depth and "singing" quality that European makers envied. Combined with a relentless spirit of industrial innovation, American makers refined the overstrung scale and the heavy cast-iron plate, creating instruments of such structural integrity and powerful projection that they redefined the modern piano.