Forty-nine brand guides to piano makers, grouped by the question buyers most often ask: who owns the name today, and where is the piano actually made?
A piano’s name and its factory have long been two different things. In 1896 the English writer E. E. Williams warned his readers: “Your piano may bear an English name and address, and, the Merchandise Marks Act notwithstanding, be English in little besides… they are the product of — not the Old Kent Road but — the Saxon Vogtland.” The same question now applies to names that sound German, Viennese or American and are built in Indonesia, China, Poland or the Czech Republic.
Even the name can be contested. In 1975 a US federal appeals court decided Grotrian v. Steinway, a dispute rooted in family history: Heinrich Steinweg, the court recorded, “emigrated to New York in 1850 with three sons, changed his name to Steinway and founded appellee Steinway & Sons,” while his eldest son stayed in Germany and later sold his business to three employees, including Wilhelm Grotrian. Our Grotrian and Steinway guides take up that story.
What “Made in Germany” means for a piano
Germany’s piano makers’ association, the Bundesverband Klavier (BVK), runs its own label. It says it certifies “nur solche Marken von Herstellern … welche zu 100 % in Deutschland hergestellt werden” — only brands made 100 per cent in Germany — and that certified makers may then carry its “Made in Germany” logo. German courts have applied a general rule, as law firms summarise it, that all essential manufacturing steps must take place in Germany; we found no ruling specific to pianos.
What “Made in USA” means
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s labelling rule allows a product to be called Made in the United States only if “the final assembly or processing of the product occurs in the United States, all significant processing that goes into the product occurs in the United States, and all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced in the United States.” That is why American piano names often use more careful wording: Mason & Hamlin’s site uses “Made in the USA,” “Assembled in the USA” and “Manufactured globally” for three different lines.
Old names, new pianos
American trademark law says a mark is “abandoned” when “its use has been discontinued with intent not to resume such use,” and that “Nonuse for 3 consecutive years shall be prima facie evidence of abandonment.” Old piano names therefore lapse, and can be registered and used again by new owners. Several guides below follow nineteenth-century names — Knabe, Sohmer, George Steck, Brodmann — onto pianos built a long way from where they began.
Tariffs and where pianos come from
US customs classifies upright and grand pianos under headings 9201.10 and 9201.20, with a general duty of 4.7 per cent, and in 2019 pianos from China were added to the “List 4A” Section 301 tariffs. United Nations trade data show that in 2023 Japan supplied 58.4 per cent of the value of US upright-piano imports, Indonesia 25.7 per cent and China 5.9 per cent.
How to use these guides
Each guide sets out who owns the name today, where the pianos are made — by the maker’s own account and, where it differs, by the buyer’s guide Piano Buyer — and what the brand’s visual identity looks like. Claims a company makes about itself are attributed to it, and where sources disagree we say so. The table at the end gathers the essentials.
The heritage nameplates
Old European and American names, and the owners and factories behind them today.
- Grotrian — The Braunschweig house a US court barred from using “Steinweg” in 1975, owned from 2015 by Parsons of Hong Kong, insolvent in 2024, and still describing its factory online.
- Seiler — The Silesian piano house rebuilt in Kitzingen, sold out of insolvency to Korea’s Samick in 2008, whose founders’ first names now head lines that PianoBuyer says are built in Indonesia.
- Feurich — The 1851 Leipzig name that left East Germany, was licensed to Vienna, is built mostly in Ningbo, and appears in a report of Bechstein’s shareholder meeting as a consolidated subsidiary.
- Bechstein — The 1853 Berlin house that lost its London hall to wartime seizure, passed through American, Korean and German owners, and now sells three nameplates with three different origin stories.
- August Förster — The Löbau piano house that has built in the same Saxon factory since 1862, kept its family through East German nationalisation, and, in every source we checked, has no second line.
- Schimmel — The Braunschweig family house that survived a planned insolvency, sold 90 percent to China’s state-owned Pearl River, and describes the deal on its own history page as an alliance.
- Boston — Steinway’s second line, whose own filings name the cities where it is built but not the company that builds it, and which sold most of Steinway’s pianos while earning a fifth of the revenue.
The makers behind the names
The Asian groups — and two Western houses — that own or build many of the pianos sold under European and American names.
- Pleyel — The 1807 Paris house of Chopin, whose last factory closed in 2013 making about twenty pianos a year, revived by a French distributor that designs in Nantes and builds with partners across Europe and Asia.
- Mason & Hamlin — The 1854 Boston house rescued from bankruptcy in 1996, whose own site says “Made in the USA,” “Assembled in the USA” and “Manufactured globally” for three different lines.
- Kawai — The Hamamatsu maker founded in 1927 by a former apprentice of Torakusu Yamaha, which says model by model where its pianos are built, keeps its family name for its best work, and is widely said to build for another.
- Pearl River — The Guangzhou state-controlled maker that calls itself the world’s largest since 2001, owns 90 percent of Schimmel, builds Steinway’s Essex line, and made 12,573 pianos in 2025.
- Samick — The 1958 Korean maker that came out of receivership, took most of Bechstein, bought Seiler and the Knabe name, built guitars for American brands, and held 32 percent of Steinway.
- Parsons Music — The Hong Kong shop that became a vertically integrated piano maker in Yichang, bought control of Grotrian in 2015 promising to expand production in Braunschweig, and still lists a German Grotrian base online.
- Hailun — The Ningbo maker that grew from a hardware workshop, builds pianos for Bechstein, Petrof and Feurich by its own filings, owns the Chinese rights to a Viennese name, and changed hands in 2025.
German makers and “100% Made in Germany”
German family and group-owned makers, several on the BVK’s certified list in 2026, and how each describes where it builds.
- Steingraeber & Söhne — The Bayreuth family maker that tuned for Liszt, built bells for Wagner, says it declined to sell a stake to Pearl River, and describes its pianos as “100% made in Bayreuth.”
- Sauter — The Spaichingen maker that dates itself to 1819, calls itself the world’s oldest piano manufacturer still in production, has been majority-owned by the Hott family since 1993, and says “100% Made in Germany” without a trade seal.
- Ferd. Thürmer — The Meissen piano house founded in 1834, expropriated in 1946, revived under licence in the West, carried on by a family that founded the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and listed in 2026 among the brands the German makers’ association certifies as 100% made in Germany.
- Pfeiffer — The Stuttgart family maker founded in 1862, now in Leonberg in its fifth generation, certified in 2026 as 100% made in Germany, and reported in 2018 to be buying cases and strung frames from a Samick-owned German plant.
- Rönisch — The Dresden piano house of 1845 that passed to Hupfeld in 1918, became “Werk 1” of East Germany’s piano combine, joined Blüthner in 2009, and carries two marks on the German makers’ 100%-made-in-Germany seal list.
- Irmler — A Leipzig piano name of 1818, revived in 1999 under the Blüthner family, whose logo says “Designed by Blüthner” where Blüthner’s other brands say “made by,” and which Piano Buyer reported was largely built in China.
- Wilh. Steinberg — The Thuringian maker that traces itself to Adolph Geyer’s Eisenberg factory of 1877, took its present name in the 1990s, is part of Hong Kong’s Parsons Music Group, and sells one line “crafted… in Eisenberg” and another whose origin its site does not state.
Second lines
Cheaper lines sold by famous makers, and where they are built.
- W. Hoffmann — The Berlin piano firm of 1893 that its site says a young woman founded, absorbed into C. Bechstein in 1990, and made since 2008 at Bechstein’s Czech factory in Hradec Králové under the line “Made in Europe by C. Bechstein.”
- Zimmermann — The Leipzig piano name of 1884 whose Saxon works became C. Bechstein’s own German factory in 1992, made in Germany until 2011, and now, Piano Buyer reports, built in China while carrying the words “Designed by C. Bechstein.”
- Essex — Steinway’s entry-level piano line, launched around 2000–01 with models Piano Buyer says were made by Young Chang in Korea, rebuilt by Pearl River in China from 2005–06, and marketed today as “The Steinway-Designed Essex” without a country on the page.
- Ritmüller — A Göttingen piano name of 1795 whose original firm went bankrupt in 1890 and was liquidated in 1933, acquired by China’s Pearl River in 1999, and marketed today as “The Ultimate Expression of German Piano Heritage.”
- Kayserburg — Pearl River’s premium piano line, launched in 2007 with a German-sounding name, built in a separate facility in Guangzhou under a Swiss production engineer, and marketed as “the ultimate expression of German craftsmanship.”
- Young Chang — The Korean piano maker founded in Seoul in 1956, whose name joins two brothers’ names, which built Steinway’s first Essex pianos by Piano Buyer’s account, owned Kurzweil and Weber, and entered court rehabilitation in 2026 as IPARK Young Chang.
- Hupfeld — The Leipzig maker of player pianos and self-playing violins that once bought Rönisch, was expropriated in 1946, passed to Blüthner in 2009, and now sells a Europe line finished in Leipzig and a Studio line Piano Buyer says is made in Indonesia.
Revived names
Old names that returned on new pianos, often built in Asia.
- Schulze Pollmann — The Italian piano maker formed in 1928 from two German firms that had moved to Turin and Bolzano, now based in San Marino, which Piano Buyer says makes its top lines in Italy and San Marino and its Studio line partly in Asia.
- Wm. Knabe & Co. — The Baltimore piano house that a German immigrant built in the 1830s, which hosted Tchaikovsky in 1891, left Baltimore around 1930, passed through Aeolian, Sohmer, Mason & Hamlin and PianoDisc, and since 2001 has been a Samick name made, Piano Buyer says, in Indonesia.
- Cunningham — The Philadelphia piano maker founded in 1891 that stopped building pianos during the Second World War, survived as a rebuilder and retailer, and since 2008 has sold new “Matchless Cunningham” pianos made with Hailun in China.
- Heintzman — The Toronto piano house founded in 1866 by a Berlin-born maker, sold out of the family in 1981, whose name and factory designs went to a 1989 Beijing joint venture that said, in 2007, “The Canadian legend continues in China.”
- Hallet, Davis & Co. — A Boston piano name that traces itself to 1835, ended up in Aeolian’s Memphis plant until 1985, and is now sold by an American distributor that says high US labour costs made it partner with overseas makers in Beijing and Guangzhou.
- Brodmann — The Vienna piano name of Joseph Brodmann, whose firm Bösendorfer took over in 1828, revived in the mid-2000s by former Bösendorfer executives, restructured in 2014, and made today, Piano Buyer says, by Parsons Music in China.
- Perzina — The Schwerin piano house the Perzina brothers founded in 1871, declined after the First World War, revived in the 1990s by a Dutch piano entrepreneur, and built since 2003 at a joint-venture factory in Yantai, China.
Names and their factories
Lines whose names point one way and whose factories point another, from New York to Yantai.
- Sohmer & Co. — The New York piano house of 1872 whose Astoria factory is now a city landmark, which left New York in 1982, whose trade marks lapsed in 2001, and whose name was fought over in court before settling, in 2010, with a Chicago company.
- George Steck — The New York piano maker founded in 1857 by a Kassel-trained craftsman, whose hall hosted Walt Whitman’s first Lincoln lecture, which joined Aeolian in 1904, gave its name to a factory in Gotha, and was licensed from 2004 to a maker in China.
- Kemble — The London family piano maker that moved to Bletchley, partnered with Yamaha from 1986, was described as Britain’s last piano maker when its factory closed in 2009, and whose pianos were then made at Yamaha plants abroad.
- Wilhelm Schimmel — Schimmel’s second line, named for the founder of 1885, built at the company’s plant in Kalisz, Poland, from the 2000s, marked “discontinued” by Schimmel in 2026 and succeeded by a “Schimmel Europe” series from the same plant.
- Weinbach — The second piano brand of the Czech maker Petrof, built on Petrof designs, now made by an unnamed “foreign partner” and finished by Petrof, whose own website once told an 1887 German founding story and no longer does.
- Kingsburg — The brand of a piano factory in Yantai, China, founded in 1988 as Yantai Longfeng, which made pianos for Western names before building its own, credits its designs to the German scale designer Klaus Fenner, and fits European parts.
- Palatino — The piano and instrument line of AXL, a company with offices in Hayward, California, and a manufacturing hub in China, whose pianos a Chicago dealer has sold since 2002 and whose US website now lists strings and brass but no pianos.
More piano guides
Our earlier guides to some of the best-known names in pianos.
- Steinway & Sons — the New York and Hamburg maker of concert grands.
- Yamaha — three interlocking tuning forks, and everything from pianos to motorcycles.
- Bösendorfer — the Viennese house founded in 1828, and the 97-key Imperial grand.
- Fazioli — the modern Italian concert grand, the F308 and its fourth pedal.
- Petrof — the Czech piano house.
- Blüthner — the Leipzig piano house.
- Estonia — the Tallinn grand.
At a glance: who owns the name and where it is made
Taken from each guide’s fact panel, as of October 2026. Ownership and production change; follow the link for sources and detail.
| Brand | Origin | Owner | Where made |
|---|---|---|---|
| August Förster | Löbau, Saxony, Germany (1859) | Förster family | Löbau, Saxony |
| Bechstein | Berlin, Germany (1853) | Kosmos Holding (Stefan Freymuth) | Seifhennersdorf, DE · Hradec Králové, CZ · see entry |
| Boston | Steinway & Sons (designer) (early 1990s) | Steinway & Sons (Paulson) | Hamamatsu, Japan · near Jakarta, Indonesia |
| Brodmann | Vienna, Austria (c. 1796) | Not established after 2014 | Parsons Music, Hong Kong/China (Piano Buyer) |
| Cunningham | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1891) | Rich Galassini and Tim Oliver (since 2008) | With Hailun, Ningbo, China, per Piano Buyer |
| Essex | Steinway & Sons line, USA (c. 2000–01) | Steinway Musical Instruments (Paulson & Co. affiliate, since 2013) | Guangzhou, China, per Piano Buyer |
| Ferd. Thürmer | Meissen, Saxony (1834) | Thürmer family (sole trader, Jan Thürmer) | Germany — BVK-certified brand (2026 list) |
| Feurich | Leipzig, Germany (1851) | See entry — documents disagree | Ningbo, China (most models); Vienna, Austria |
| George Steck | New York City (1857) | Name licensed to Asian makers (2004–); current owner not established | Qingdao, China, under licence from 2004 (Fine) |
| Grotrian | Seesen / Braunschweig, Germany (1835) | Parsons Music Group (from 2015) | See entry — status changed 2025 |
| Hailun | Ningbo, Zhejiang, China (2001 (company)) | Cui Yongqing (actual controller) | Ningbo, China |
| Hallet, Davis & Co. | Boston, Massachusetts (1835 / 1843) | US distributor (Stony Point, New York) | China — Beijing Hsinghai and Pearl River, per Piano Buyer |
| Heintzman | Toronto, Canada (1866) | Canadian–Chinese joint venture (per its 2007 site) | Beijing, China (Piano Buyer, 2022) |
| Hupfeld | Leipzig, Saxony (1892) | Blüthner group, via Carl Rönisch Pianofortemanufaktur (since 2009) | Europe line: Romania + Leipzig; Studio line: Indonesia (Piano Buyer) |
| Irmler | Leipzig, Saxony (1818 / 1999) | Blüthner family (via Irmler Piano GmbH) | “Designed by Blüthner”; see entry |
| Kawai | Hamamatsu, Japan (1927) | Kawai Musical Instruments Mfg. (listed, Tokyo) | Japan (Ryuyo) · Indonesia · China |
| Kayserburg | Guangzhou, China (2007) | Guangzhou Pearl River Piano Group (state-owned) | Zengcheng, Guangzhou — separate facility, per Piano Buyer |
| Kemble | London; later Bletchley, Milton Keynes (early 1900s) | Yamaha (controlling stake from the late 1980s) | Bletchley until 2009; Yamaha plants abroad after |
| Kingsburg | Yantai, Shandong, China (1988) | Yantai Kingsburg Piano Co., Ltd. | Yantai, China |
| Mason & Hamlin | Boston, Massachusetts, USA (1854) | Burgett family | Haverhill, MA (VX) · see entry |
| Palatino | AXL (Hayward, California) brand (c. 2000) | AXL | China (AXL’s “manufacturing hub”) |
| Parsons Music | Hong Kong (1986) | Ng family (described as a family business) | Yichang, Hubei, China |
| Pearl River | Guangzhou, China (1956) | Guangzhou state assets (ultimate controller) | Guangzhou (Zengcheng), China |
| Perzina | Schwerin, Germany (1871) | Music Brokers International (Netherlands) joint venture | Yantai, Shandong, China (Piano Buyer) |
| Pfeiffer | Stuttgart, Germany (1862) | Pfeiffer family (fifth generation) | Leonberg — BVK-certified brand (2026 list) |
| Pleyel | Paris, France (1807) | Algam (Garnier family) | Designed in Nantes; built by partners in Europe and Asia |
| Ritmüller | Name: Göttingen, 1795; brand: Pearl River, 1999 (1999) | Guangzhou Pearl River Piano Group (state-owned) | Guangzhou, China, per Piano Buyer |
| Rönisch | Dresden, Saxony (1845) | Julius Blüthner Pianofortefabrik (since 2009) | Großpösna near Leipzig — BVK-certified (2026 list) |
| Samick | South Korea (1958) | Listed in Korea; chairman Kim Jong-sup largest individual holder | Indonesia · Korea · Germany (Seiler) · China |
| Sauter | Spaichingen, Germany (1819) | Hott family majority (since 1993) | Spaichingen (“100% Made in Germany,” Sauter says) |
| Schimmel | Near Leipzig, Germany (1885) | Pearl River Piano Group (90%) | Braunschweig · see entry for other lines |
| Schulze Pollmann | Turin and Bolzano, Italy (1928) | Italian company (Schulze Pollmann Pianoforti s.r.l.) | San Marino and Italy; Studio line partly in Asia (Piano Buyer) |
| Seiler | Liegnitz, Silesia (1849) | Samick (South Korea) | Kitzingen (Seiler line); Indonesia (second lines) |
| Sohmer & Co. | New York City (1872) | US mark registered to Persis International (Chicago), 2010 | Current production not documented |
| Steingraeber & Söhne | Thuringia (1820s, by its own account); Bayreuth (1852) | Steingraeber family (7th generation) | Bayreuth (“100% made in Bayreuth, Germany”) |
| W. Hoffmann | Berlin, Germany (1893) | C. Bechstein Pianoforte GmbH (group member since 1990) | Hradec Králové, Czech Republic (“Made in Europe”) |
| Weinbach | Petrof brand family, Hradec Králové (undated) | PETROF, spol. s r. o. (Petrof family) | By a “foreign partner”; finished by Petrof |
| Wilh. Steinberg | Eisenberg, Thuringia (1877) | Parsons Music Group, Hong Kong | Signature line: Eisenberg; see entry |
| Wilhelm Schimmel | Kalisz, Poland (Schimmel plant) (2000s) | Wilhelm Schimmel Pianofortefabrik GmbH (Pearl River majority since 2016) | Kalisz, Poland; series discontinued 2026, Schimmel says |
| Wm. Knabe & Co. | Baltimore, Maryland (1837 (by its own dating)) | Samick (since 2001) | Mostly Indonesia, per Piano Buyer |
| Young Chang | Seoul, South Korea (1956) | IPARK Young Chang (HDC group since 2006); in court rehabilitation, 2026 | Plants historically in Incheon and Tianjin, China |
| Zimmermann | Leipzig, Saxony (1884) | C. Bechstein Pianoforte GmbH (since 1992) | China (Hailun, Ningbo), per Piano Buyer 2022 |
Frequently asked questions
Is a piano with a German name made in Germany?
Not necessarily. Several names in this hub are German in origin but built in Indonesia, China, Poland or the Czech Republic, according to their makers or Piano Buyer. Check where the maker says the instrument is built. In Germany, the BVK reserves its “Made in Germany” seal for brands it says are made 100 per cent there.
What is a piano “second line”?
A cheaper line sold by a well-known maker and often built elsewhere. Steinway’s Boston and Essex, Bechstein’s W. Hoffmann and Zimmermann, and Schimmel’s Wilhelm Schimmel are examples covered in this hub.
Part of our Audio & Music brand guidelines. See also brands by industry.