Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I’m Robert Estrin. The question today is: What was the peak year for piano sales in the United States? At the turn of the 20th century, before television or radio, the piano was the de facto home entertainment system for families in the United States. Not only that, but player pianos were incredibly popular.
Player piano rolls had the words to the songs written on them so that people could gather around the piano and sing along.
Not only that, but there were little control levers so that whoever was operating the player piano, typically pumping it with their feet, could control the treble and bass volume, as well as other aspects of the sound. Some player pianos even had ways of interacting with the sound, like putting little tacks in front of each of the hammers with a lever to get different sounds. So it was really fun, and they were immensely popular. So I’m going to give a rundown here, going all the way back.
Let’s start at the beginning of the 20th century.
In the year 1900, about 171,000 pianos were sold in the United States. Now, that’s pretty astounding. But the peak came just a few years later. In 1909, there were around 365,000 pianos sold in the United States. That’s an amazing number when you consider there were only about 90 million people in the country, a quarter of the population today! Then, the Great Depression hit, and the radio became popular. In 1932, only 27,000 pianos were sold in the United States. That’s an astounding decline in piano sales!
There was actually a time when no pianos were sold in the United States.
During World War II, from about 1943 to 1945, piano factories converted to defense manufacturing. The Baldwin factory, for example, was producing parts for planes. So there were no pianos produced. And then, of course, it started to pick up again after World War II ended. By 1978, it was kind of another peak year, with 282,000 pianos sold. Of course, at that time there were 223 million people living in the country, about two and a half times as many as in 1909, with fewer pianos being sold.
Let’s flash forward to 2020.
Only 21,000 pianos were sold in the entire country in 2020! Now, these are new piano sales. Naturally, as the years go on, there are more and more used pianos sold in the country, and not all of those are counted in these figures. So you have to take this with a grain of salt. Now, that was the start of COVID. By 2021, it had gone up to roughly 29,000. When you consider that there are 332 million people in the country, that’s really a tremendous decline in the number of pianos sold.
There are a plethora of digital pianos and used pianos being sold today.
You can find plenty of used pianos for sale on eBay and Piano Mart, as well as right here at LivingPianos.com, where we restore used pianos because there are so many instruments that go by the wayside. And our mission is to rescue the ones that are worthy of restoration, bringing new life to pianos! I hope this is interesting information for you! Anything that we can do to increase the interest and love for pianos, we do it right here! Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin, here at Living Pianos: Your Online Piano Resource. Join the discussion at LivingPianos.com where you can leave your comments on countless articles with accompanying videos.
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13 thoughts on “PIANO Sales DOWN 94% in US!”
My wife teaches piano lessons on our Steinway A. We try to encourage parents to get their students acoustic pianos as much as possible as keyboards are lacking in depth and breadth of real pianos. However, a keyboard is better than no instrument so, we use caution. You can pick up a real piano for less than keyboards in our area (OC, Cal). It’s usually a space problem or perceived problem for the parents. Both our grown children are professional musicians…daughter Kristen, choral director Bolsa Grande HS and son, Brent, bass/cello player…OneRepublic.
Without meaning to cast any unnecessary forbodence on current and coming times, I’ve always taken some comfort in the fact that my piano works perfectly fine even when there’s no electricity. There have been more than one power-less nights when playing it brought great comfort. Perhaps some would do well to consider and plan ahead while they’re still available and deliverable — just sayin’ … 🙂
While piano sales are down in this country, piano is alive and well in China where they produce almost 400,000 pianos a year. And they are not all for export. They local Chinese buy 400,000 pianos a year!
China sounds like a great market for online piano lessons!
You would think that with the millions of pianos and piano students in China that it would be a great market for online piano lessons. For me personally, there are two problems. First of all, there is a 12 hour time difference which makes scheduling difficult. But more importantly, Google services, which include YouTube, are blocked there. So they don’t see my videos and I can’t use my email to communicate since it’s run by G-mail.
Funny thing though, a few years ago when I attended the HUGE Music China show in Shanghai, many people did recognize me there!
There will (eventually, at some future time) be a marked revival of the acoustic piano, I think. You are sitting on a gold mine… perhaps the trick is to be content with your collection of precious friends while you wait.
Living Pianos started in 2006 as the world’s first online piano store. So we cast a very wide net. As a result, we connect with people who appreciate the piano and buy pianos from us all over the world! As fine pianos become increasingly rare (only 2,500 pianos were built in the US last year!), people seek out fine restored top-tier pianos and find us! I also teach students all over the world with streaming. So there are always people out there who love the piano – like you in Australia!
It is a sad situation. People spend most of their time texting on their stupid cell phones. They just don’t know what they are missing by not spending time at a real piano. Once again my mother was right she she told me that in this life, we can lose everybody and everything, but at the end the piano will be my only best friend left.
If that’s the case, I may end my life with a lot of friends!
🙂 My Schimmel is turning out to be my best friend! I only need one! 🙂
Is that because you are sitting on so many pianos you cant sell ? 😉
Just a joke, I dont want to offend you!
I like you Youtube channel.
I concede you to sell some more of your “friends”.
People are buying digital pianos, keyboards, and putting acoustic pianos out by the road….so sad! I’m a piano teacher and personally have seen this happen. My students do so much better on a “real” well-tuned piano!
You’re right! Having the best possible instrument to practice on makes a huge difference in the progress students make on the piano.