At a Hilton Head thrift store: $2 suits, 50-cent shirts — and this for $9,800

Does this strike a chord?

Hilton Head Island’s oldest thrift shop has a Steinway & Sons baby grand piano on the floor, standing out among the $2 suits and 50-cent shirts.

The sleek onyx marvel is being offered for $9,800, or best offer.

It was given to The Bargain Box by a Savannah woman whose mother used to volunteer at the thrift store.

The donor wishes to remain anonymous.

Store manager Sandy Entrup knows that the piano was given to the donor by her husband and that she sometimes came with her mother on her Bargain Box days. She paid to have it delivered to the Bargain Box, located behind First Presbyterian Church on William Hilton Parkway.

Based on the serial number, the 6-foot-long piano was built in 1885, Entrup said. Later, a player piano system was added. It was refurbished within the past 20 years, and comes with a bench that Entrup said is worth $1,100 itself.

The Bargain Box, founded by three women in 1965 to provide reasonably-priced clothing for islanders, is approaching $15 million in donations to local nonprofits.

It also sparked a major industry for the area. A recent guide to resale stores in the Savannah and Beaufort County area totaled almost 90 stores, 15 of them nonprofits. Five of those were on Hilton Head, where volunteer workers say the working class, the well-to-do and vacationers are all regulars.

The thrift stores have done amazing things with their donations. For example, the Church Mouse Boutique Thrift Store on Arrow Road recently made a three-year, $135,000 grant to restore the Baynard Mausoleum, Hilton Head’s oldest structure.

The Bargain Box has always found a dash of the exotic in its donations bin — and we’re not talking about the time a container of a woman’s ashes turned up in a box of donations.

Baby grands are not unusual. And over the years, they have sold an airplane or two, an inn full of furniture, stamp collections, a Rolls- Royce, RVs, diamond tennis bracelets, an 1824 German violin, a Seth Thomas grandfather clock and a first-edition of Pat Conroy’s “The Boo,” which went for $1,000. A couple of years ago, a tourist bought a nice Cadillac for $5,500.

“This is the most major item we’ve had in the past several years,” part-time office manager Dean Roberts said about the Steinway.

Customers have been drawn to it, even suggesting the store just keep it.

A man from Pittsburgh came in, shopping with his wife. He returned that week with an arm full of sheet music and played for an hour.

A family visiting from Georgia with four teenage children all played “Heart and Soul” on the piano at the same time, each playing in a different octave.

“Every so often, they would all switch and play a different octave,” Entrup said. “It was something to behold.”

When the giggling ended, the oldest child, who is enrolled in a music school, played serious music.

“He killed it,” Entrup said.

When a van full of residents came in from an assisted living community, part-time Bargain Box worker Ryan Tye played Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” for them. The former drummer in Hannah Wicklund’s band, The Steppin’ Stones, taught himself to play piano. And like the old Steinway he played while blowing the hamonica, he once again found himself onstage.

Does that strike a chord?

This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 4:05 PM.