Important Considerations for Purchasing

[Nevets306]

Well I am in the hunt of the great fender rhodes. I'm currently looking to buy a Mark II suitcase from this guy. This is what I noticed when i played it, mind you no tines are broken and he is going to have a tech come in and even everything out.
The middle of the keyboard feels great and sounds great too. The high and lower parts of hte keyboard are weeker than the middle which might be a pickup distance thing or not i dunno. When i turned up the treble the high was almost as equal as the middle but you shouldn't have to do that. Also the keyboard just feels really uneven in general and it doesn't feel comfortable to play YET. but maybe that's all going to change once the tech looks at it hopefully. Should I wait it out if the middle feels good than the rest will feel good in the end too? I'm looking to spend almost top dollar for a really good conditioned one so should i stick out this one or also search elseware? OH and it has a pretty bad smell of maybe mildew or mustard kind of smell coming from it when the top is off and the tolex on the back has some wear in tear but all the speakers work really great.

-Steve

[BJT3]

I'd be more worried about the mildew smell than anything else. Is there any visable mold/rot? Not sure what you mean when you say the action isn't comfortable, but certain years have harder action than others, but this can be fixed. If your willing to pay top dollar why not get one that has been reconditioned by a well know tech like this one at VintageVibe?
http://www.vintagevibe.com/pc-347-9-fender-rhodes-piano-stage-88-key.aspx

[Nevets306]

Not that much of top dollar, more like a little over $1000. I dunno about the smell but it is defintnly coming from inside the keyboard and i dunno what could be causing it. If the action is good in the middle, does that mean the rest of it can be tweaked to be like that?