For more than 100 years, it has served generations of steel workers and their families. But the small grand piano is showing age and use: there is a crack along the lid, and its chipped black finish belies a former glory.

Talk about your diamonds in the rough.

Officials at the Carnegie Library of Homestead have always known, of course, that their piano is an 1899 Steinway. But it wasn't until fairly recently board officials discovered just how special it is.

"A Steinway piano is built to outlast its owner. A hundred years later, it's there, it's still working. Thank goodness someone 'discovered' it," said Ray Rotuna, senior district manager for Steinway & Sons.

This "parlor grand" is an unpolished gem, with large scratches here and there and ... is that duct tape along the fall board?

"Who knows?" said board member Mark Fallon, laughing.

Almost as enticing as the idea of restoring the piano is the mystery of how the library came to own an instrument that must have cost about $80,000 back in the day.

Henry Clay Frick loved music, and he was certainly a benefactor to the city of Pittsburgh. The romantic notion that he bought the piano for the library has been taken almost as a given, dating back to an item in the April 25, 1899 Homestead Messenger newspaper.

"The fine piano in Carnegie Music hall has attracted a great deal of attention and much speculation has been indulged in as to who presented it," said the small piece. "The secret has leaked out at last. It was the gift of H.C. Frick of the Carnegie Steel company. Mr. Frick is quite modest and asked that his name be withheld but it finally leaked out."

A logical conclusion, but probably untrue, according to Julie Ludwig, an associate archivist for the Frick Collection and the Frick Art reference library.

"I would say that he [Mr. Frick] preferred not to have his name connected to most of his contributions, with some exceptions: Frick Park, obviously," she said.

But, she said, the Fricks kept very detailed records of private transactions, which would include such a donation. In the period of 1899-1900, for example, there are three bills payable to C.C. Mellor music company in Pittsburgh, where the Munhall library's Steinway was purchased.

One of the bills in this time frame was for a Steinway piano, which was donated to the North Woods Club in Minerva, N.Y.

But the other two were for moving and tuning services for other pianos, probably instruments at Clayton, the family home in Point Breeze.

"Basically, the archives were private, they were personal, so the documentation would not have been public record," Ms. Ludwig said.

"That doesn't mean he didn't donate it, but there would be no reason not to have documentation for it."

The Fricks were not the only wealthy philanthropists around, she added with a small laugh: "The fact that it's the Carnegie library doesn't exactly eliminate Andrew Carnegie."

Jane Gorjevsky, curator for the Carnegie Collections housed at Columbia University, said Mr. Carnegie was fond of the "so-called workers' clubs" he helped establish in the area and that he might well have purchased the piano.

Documentation, in this case, would be more difficult to establish as many of his financial records were converted to microfiche in the 1940s and would require much time and labor to sort through.

Steinway & Sons, which has produced thousands of pianos since the company set up shop in 1853, keeps track of each through a hand-written log.

The book mentions Piano No. 91650 -- the serial number is listed on the gold-colored plate inside the piano, beneath the lid --as being sold through C.C Mellor, but not who paid for it.

Mr. Rotuna said he's just happy the piano is still around: "I'm really just mostly pleased more than surprised, that the instrument wasn't given away, or abused, or in some other way lost to history."

The library has a record that somewhere in the 1940's or 1950's, said Mr. Fallon, "someone offered us $200 for it."

The board is currently working on fund-raising ideas for the complete restoration of the piano, which probably would run in the neighborhood of $30,000 to $60,000. Steinway would need to have the piano for about a year, which is how long it takes to hand-build its pianos new.

"The Steinway has been called 'the only piano built to be rebuilt,' " said Mr. Rotuna. "What adds to the value of this piano is not the Steinway name, it is the design, the materials that go into the creation."

Once a piano is taken to the Steinway factory in Queens, New York City, it would be carefully disassembled, not an easy process. There are no metal parts holding the more than 12,000 pieces together; they are maple-dowled and glued together.

The biggest fix for the library's piano would be the lid. At some point in its history, someone added fasteners and strapping that ended up cracking the lid. The fall board -- the panel that comes down to cover the keys -- is also split.

"But all of that is repairable, not a problem," Mr. Rotuna said. "We just thank goodness it wasn't totally discarded."

The piano has been a workhorse, used by everyone from local church groups for Easter services to the Homestead Steel Works Chorus back in the height of the steel industry's production.

"The best thing you can do with a Steinway is to play it. That's what keeps it vibrant," said Leo Spellman, the company's senior director of communications.

At some point, it's possible the original legs were replaced, although Steinway representatives haven't made that determination.

The current value of this vintage instrument is upward of $100,000, Mr. Fallon said. Restored, it could be twice that.

The library also has a vintage pipe organ installed in its music hall but it's been inoperable since the late 1940s. That, library officials say, is another project for another day.

A Homestead Messenger article dated April 7, 1899 noted the arrival of the piano and the fact that "the giver remains, for the present, a mystery."

One hundred and eight years later, it still is.