1958

  • Steinway & Sons builds and sells 1,936 pianos, almost 600 less than two years previously.
  • Steinway & Sons’ net loss in America is $60,000 – however, with money coming now from Hamburg, Steinway & Sons makes profit internationally ($115,406 total), largely due to having captured near-monopoly in Germany after the war, and also thanks to Walter Günther’s extremely profitable music department store in Hamburg.
  • Steinway & Sons’ share of the American national grand piano market is 24%.
  • The last Ditmars avenue Steinway & Sons factory building is sold for $1,000,000.
  • Only 277 permanent, full-time workers are employed by Steinway & Sons.
  • By this year, Steinway & Sons operations has been consolidated at the site originally bought by William Steinway in 1871, and it already had become obvious that upgrading the Riker factory and moving all production here has been a wrong move. The operation is not as efficient as it should be, because the pianos in various stages of completion have to be moved all around the labyrinth of old and new buildings, and the humidity from the bay, Steinway Creek, and the tidal swamp make the wood swell. Factory manager Frank Walsh solves the humidity problem by locking all the windows, raising the interior temperature and keeping fans on at all times, but the workers begin to suffer from hyperthermia and dehydration, and union prepares to go to court. Steinway & Sons provides bamboo shades on the windows, additional fans and water coolers.
  • Steinway & Sons share of the United States grand piano market is 24%.
  • Yamaha exports approximately 275 pianos, a drop in the ocean of the international piano market – and yet it sells 30,000 pianos in Japan, competing for the status of the leading piano manufacturer in its country.
  • Yamaha’s president, Genichi Kawakami, hires Jimmy Jingu, a Japanese American from Texas, giving him the task of establishing Yamaha’s presence in the United States. Jimmy Jingu finds a dealer in Los Angeles, named Sam Zimmering, and sells him 1,000 Yamaha pianos branded as “Zimmering”.