- Steinway & Sons builds 256 pianos (other accounts indicate the sale of 208 pianos per year).
- Steinway & Sons pianomaking workshop moves from 85 Varick Street to the building directly behind it, at 91 Mercer Street. 85 Varick Street will from now on house only Steinway & Sons’ keymaking department. Steinway & Sons showrooms are at 84 and 86 Walker Street.
- Charles Steinway stops working as a Steinway & Sons regulator, replaced by Theodore Vogel (who is married to Wilhelmina Steinweg). Charles Steinway assumes responsibility of the entire manufacturing operations of the firm.
- Steinway & Sons discontinues the production of “sweep-scale” pianos, and begins to build its flagship “overstrung square model”
- At the Crystal Palace fair this year, Steinway wins only a silver model for its grand piano, upstaged by Chickering & Sons, who win the gold – largely thanks to the authority of the Chickering-supported pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and despite the influence of another pianist in the jury, Steinway & Sons endorser Hermann Wolhenhaupt.