Young Chang pianos is based in South Korea and was founded in 1956 by three brothers: Jae-Young Kim, Jae-Chang Kim, and Jae-Seop Kim. The brothers began selling Yamaha pianos in Korea under an agreement with the firm.
Currently, Young Chang is one of the largest piano manufacturing companies in the world.
The company holds approximately fifty percent of the Korean piano market.
For
approximately nine years, beginning in 1964, Young Chang and Yamaha
entered into an agreement where Yamaha shipped partially completed
pianos from Japan, to the Young Chang factory in Inchon, S. Korea.
There, the company performed final assembly work. This included assembling the cabinet, installing the action, and stringing the piano.
This arrangement with Yamaha lasted until 1975, as Young Chang decided to manufacture pianos under their own name, as well as to expand the company's reach, domestically and internationally. Toward the late 1970s, Young Chang began exporting their pianos to the United States.
1979 was a pivotal year, as the company saw its influence reach worldwide: Young Chang America (1979), and later, Young Chang Canada (1984), and finally, Young Chang Europe (1989).
Young Chang also built pianos for other companies, under names such as Astor, Bechendorff, Bergmann, Cline, Essex, Ibach, Karl Muller, Knabe, Nakamura, Pramberger, Schafer & Sons, Wagner, Weber, and Wurlitzer.
In 1995, Joseph Pramberger (former Vice President of Steinway and Sons) joined the company and brought certain innovations which include the “Platinum Touch Action” and the patented, asymmetrically tapered soundboard, which made Young Chang even more famous and allowed them to produce pianos of a much better quality.
In 1990, Young Chang purchased Kurzweil Music Systems, a manufacturer of high end digital and electronic musical instruments, thus making their market even much wider.
Present Day Manufacturing
The company is headquartered in Incheon, South Korea and has more than 2000 full time workers who design and build their grand and upright pianos, as well as the Kurzweil Music Systems.
Young Chang Grand pianos come in three series:
Young Chang Upright pianos also come in three series with the same names, the Platinum Series, Professional Artist and the Y Series.
After the company purchased Kurzweil Music Systems, Young Chang continued to manufacture electronic and digital musical instruments under the same name. Currently, they have five different electronic piano series with a total of nine different designs.
All these pianos are designed and manufactured in South Korean under the supervision of Delwin Fandrich (who entered the piano industry in 1961), who is Young Chang Piano’s Design and Manufacturing Consultant since 2008.
Looking to find the age of your Young Chang Piano? Find help to
locate
the serial number on your piano here,
then reference the chart below.
Upright Pianos
1978 - 7800000 |
1994 - 1954972 |
Grand Pianos The letter “G” comes 1978 - 7800000 |
1990 - 0053945 |
Young Chang Piano Serial Numbers for pianos made in:
Tianjin, China factory for Young Chang & Bergmann names
Upright 1996 - 0001000 1998 - 0004878 1999 - 0023856 2000 - 0040047 2001 - 00054349 2002 - 00067929 2003 - 00083811 Bergmann 2003 - 00085733 2004 - 00095439 2005 - 00109860 2006 - 00117280 2007 - 00132300 2008 - 00149000 |
Grand 1998 - 0000055 1999 - 0002430 2000 - 0003812 2001 - 0005735 2002 - 0009167 2003 - 0012718 Bergmann 2003 - 0012677 2004 - 0014027 2005 - 0016040 2006 - 0017023 2007 - 0018920 2008 - 0022200 |
Young Chang / Pramberger Serial Numbers
Inchon, S. Korea factory
Upright 2002 - 2531019 2003 - 2559452 2004 - 2576987 2005 - 2586000 2006 - Sold to Samick |
Grand 2001 - J0020631 2002 - J0021124 2003 - J0021546 2004 - J00021810 2005 - J00022340 2006 - Sold to Samick |
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