At 12:00 AM 7/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Decals?  Presumably this refers to "Flemish papers"  I always thought that
>decals were things like bumper stickers.

I would assume this was a reference to practices of piano makers, esp about
a century ago. It was common for the name of the maker to appear on a decal
applied to the fallboard. It was also common practice (Steinway was
especially good at this) to apply large, elaborate decals to the soundboard
proclaiming the many patents held on the instrument, royalty and heads of
state who used the instruments, and prizes won at fairs and expositions in
the US and Europe.

I've never seen such a thing on a harpsichord, though.

Joseph
The Musical Offering

The Musical Offering
Berkeley, California