I suspect if you have good movers it doesn't matter, and if you don't
have good movers it's impossible/pointless to plan for exactly what
knocks will occur. Perhaps the theory is that the board converts
inward knocks into outward ones. The competing theory would be that a
box with all its sides is stronger than a box with one side missing.
I'm not worrying much, the thing was robust enough to stand being
incompetently moved up the stairs by me and two similarly unmuscled
types without going noticeably out of tune.

Going back to Ruckers, and what's probably very obvious, the overall
division of space is a box with a smooth exterior and stuff inside,
you open the lid or door to get to what's inside, including the
keyboard and the sounds and the toolbox ... boxes within boxes.
Whereas with Italians you have a box containing the strings, and then
stuff - ie keyboard - projecting outside, it is always 'open for
business' (at least when not stored in its 'outer').

They came this morning at 8.20 and had the thing out the door and down
two bent flights of stairs in around 40 seconds: helps to have someone
who can support practically the entire weight at the keyboard end to
get the bottom over the banister newel, or whatever the pointlessly
tall bit of wood at the 180 degree turn is called.
Thick cloth cover with rope and straps helps of course.
~~~T~~~
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