Baldwin Model M

About the Baldwin Model M

The Model M belongs to Baldwin's Masterpiece Artist Series, introduced in 1932 alongside the larger L, F and D grands after seven years of development work. What set that development apart from ordinary piano design of the era was its method: company president Lucien Wulsin brought in the physics department at the University of Cincinnati to build a standardized way of measuring piano tone, work that produced an early electronic tool called the Spectrograph capable of precisely reading every tone in the scale along with its harmonics. That let Baldwin move scale design away from intuition and toward something closer to empirical, repeatable measurement - a genuinely unusual approach for American piano manufacturing at the time. The keyboard itself uses 88 keys with ebony sharps and white Pyralin naturals, an early plastic developed as a substitute for ivory. Examples still turning up on the used market today span finishes from satin walnut to ebony black satin and date anywhere from the 1940s through the 1970s, reflecting just how long this scale design stayed in production largely unchanged.

Where to buy

• Reverb Baldwin Grand Piano Model M Black Free In-Home Delivery/Setup 7.170 EUR Best price View details

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Sound character of the Baldwin Model M

Owners and dealers alike describe a bass register that's unusually rich and full for a baby grand this size, carrying real richness from the top of the keyboard down to the lowest notes rather than thinning out the way many compact grands do. That character traces directly back to the Spectrograph-assisted scale design behind the whole Masterpiece Artist Series - one of the earliest serious applications of acoustic measurement science to American piano scale design, aimed specifically at giving a smaller instrument a bigger, more even voice across its full range.

What owners of the Baldwin Model M say

Forum discussion among owners runs consistently warm toward the Model M, with one direct comparison to a Steinway model S baby grand coming down in the Baldwin's favor on bass richness and truthfulness of tone, and another owner simply calling its scale 'marvelous' and the piano itself 'a fantastic work of art.' A broader look at Baldwin's reputation over time adds useful context: the brand holds up well enough that in blind comparisons some players have actually preferred later, overseas-built Baldwins to older American-made examples, suggesting the Model M's strong reputation rests on genuinely good scale design rather than just nostalgia for vintage manufacturing.

Playability & handling of the Baldwin Model M

Contemporary promotional material quoted the pianist Henry Bauer praising the Artist Series for its 'beautiful quality of tone, delicate responsiveness of action and wide range of dynamic possibilities' - a description that still roughly matches how later owners describe the action today, as refined enough to carry expression from the gentlest pianissimo to a full fortissimo rather than feeling like a compromise for its size class. Since most surviving examples are now 50 to 90-plus years old, action parts, hammers and strings commonly reach the point where some brittleness sets in after roughly three to four decades, meaning a full or partial restoration is often part of owning one rather than an exception. Prospective buyers are generally advised to have a certified technician assess an individual piano's internal condition before purchase rather than relying on age or finish alone as a guide.

Recommended accessories & strings for the Baldwin Model M

Given the age of most surviving units, the most relevant ongoing need isn't an accessory in the traditional sense but a relationship with a certified piano technician: regular annual tuning and periodic inspection of hammers, strings and action parts keep a vintage instrument like this playable rather than merely decorative. A humidity-control system for the room the piano lives in protects the soundboard and wooden components from the swings in moisture that cause far more long-term damage to an instrument this age than ordinary playing wear does.

Technical data for the Baldwin Model M

Price history for the Baldwin Model M

Cheapest seen: 7.170 EUR  ·  Most expensive seen: 7.170 EUR

The history of the Baldwin Model M

Baldwin introduced the Model M as part of its new Masterpiece Artist Series in 1932, the product of seven years spent developing a scientific approach to piano tone that was unusual for American manufacturers of the era. President Lucien Wulsin enlisted the University of Cincinnati's physics department to build the Spectrograph, an early electronic instrument able to precisely measure every tone in the piano's scale along with its harmonic content, replacing the intuitive, trial-and-error approach to scale design that had dominated piano building until then. The resulting Artist Series models - M, L, F and D - earned praise from leading concert pianists of the day and went on to become, in the M's case, one of the longest-running American baby grand designs, remaining in production in broadly the same form for more than seventy years.

About Baldwin as a manufacturer

Baldwin traces back to Dwight Hamilton Baldwin, who began teaching piano in Cincinnati in 1857 and opened a piano dealership there in 1862, hiring a young clerk named Lucien Wulsin in 1866. Around 1889-90 the company committed to building its own instruments rather than just selling others', launching its first upright in 1891 and its first grand in 1895; after Baldwin's death in 1899, Wulsin took over and pushed the company further into manufacturing, winning the Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle - at the time, the highest honor any American-made piano had received. Baldwin weathered the Depression on reserves built up by Lucien Wulsin II and turned its factories over to aircraft plywood production during World War II, before post-war demand pushed output to double its pre-war levels by 1953. The company acquired Germany's C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik in 1963 and held onto it until 1986, while ill-fated moves into guitar brands (Burns of London, Gretsch) and, more disastrously, financial services under the renamed Baldwin-United banner led to a 1983 bankruptcy with debts exceeding nine billion dollars - the largest corporate bankruptcy of its time, though the piano business itself survived and was sold to its own management in 1984. A second bankruptcy in 2001 brought Baldwin under Gibson Guitar Corporation's ownership, and domestic manufacturing ended in December 2008, with piano production shifting to Chinese facilities built to Baldwin's specifications.