To help me decide whether it its worth spending a day going to look at a piano:

Can anyone tell me what type of action was used in a 1900 Bosendorfer 165cm ?
Was it a modern action, or did it still use a Vienna action?

Thanks in advance.

Hi MT,

Don't know if this helps but I have found this link on the web for a Bosendorfer that fits your description and it does mention "Viennese mechanics"
http://cgi.ebay.at/TOPANGEBOT-BOSENDORFER-...0QQcmdZViewItem

Apologies if this is not what you're after!

Thanks. It answers my question precisely. I never thought to google foreign eBay sites .

The piano in your Ad has a Viennese action, and it has a LATER serial number than the one I was thinking of seeing, so that will almost certainly have the Viennese action too.

At the asking price it could hardly have been otherwise. So it looks my search for a bargain Bosendorfer will continue - or I'll give up the search and go for the convenience of a silent Yamaha.

Cheers

I know I could probably Google this but what exactly is a Viennese action?

There are dozens of differences, but the most obvious when you look at the piano is that the hammer operates the opposite way around to what is now standard, i.e. the hammer is closer to the front of the piano than its hinge (in the modern action the hammer head is further from the player than its hinge). But more important than that, especially for the technician that has to adjust it, is that, unlike the situation in a modern grand, the pivot of the hammer is directly attached to the key.

Playing a piano with that type of action is quite a weird experience if you are used to a modern grand piano. It is light, it lacks the double escapement, it just feels very different. It was good enough for all the great composers of the classical and Romantic periods from Haydn onwards - even for Liszt. But it is not an ideal mechanism in a practice instrument if you are likely to be performing on a modern Steinway or Yamaha.