Reply To: Buying a clavietta – how to check it’s condition?
as someone who just purchased a Clavietta and immediately had to set about unexpected repair work, just want to thank Melodica-Me for his many posts over the years, which i’ve found extremely helpful. to any buyer i’d recommend asking the vendor to open up the instrument for inspection, which will allow you to see the state of the washers and gasketing and give you some idea of whether you’re going to run into issues #1 or #2 as described above.
for example, here’s an image from forum user Michael of the interior of the instrument found in shabby condition, with the original brown washers, some of them cracked. here’s the same instrument after replacing the washers and gasketing material. depending on what it looks like in there, you should be able to get some idea of the kind of legwork you’re going to need to do to keep it playable