UK analogue synth prices

[kritikon]

I was surfing around Sound on Sound yesterday, and Holy Cow! Saw a Korg MS20 going for 1350 pounds . Do they really go for that much nowadays? Bought mine for 200 quid back a few years. It's almost worth bringing it over to sell next time I visit. And there were the odd Juno60 going for anything between 400 - 600 quid. Surely not?

Yet 106s etc seem to have stayed static (I can understand that, as they're not that good really). JX3ps still seem to go for 250-300 (yet they're better than Junos IMO. And then I saw the odd JX8p and JX10 going for as low as 400 quid. If a 106 is worth 350, a JX10 is worth way more than that...

Seems like there's no sense in the pricing of old synths there at present. My god...I've still got most of my old synths from before I moved here - I think I might be sitting on a gold mine.

[thecontrolcentre]

Bear in mind that just because they're asking stupid money (£1350) for old analogs, it doesn't mean anyone's buying at that price. I have an old Teisco 60F, which I paid $50 for about 15 years ago. I'm told it's worth ten times that now, but I doubt I would get that much for it. Anyway it's not for sale.

[Mr Arkadin]

Some people put prices out there to see if there's a bite (if they're in no hurry to sell). I saw a CR-78 on gumtree for £700 which is silly. Look at eBay for people who put silly BIN prices on - chancers really.

However the Jupiter market has gone silly lately. I got my JP-4 about five years ago for £375, now they're in the £1000s. I got my OSCar in the mid-'90s when they weren't trendy for £190, now they £1000+. I wouldn't sell any of this stuff though .

Just looked in SOS Ads and saw a Moog Rogue for £540 and a Juno 60 for £700. Silly.

[thecontrolcentre]

However the Jupiter market has gone silly lately.

A mate of mine picked up a Jupiter6 (with flight-case) for £200, and a DX7 for £100 in the late '90's ... I've no idea what they're worth now.

[Synthbuilder]

The JXs don't go for as much since they don't sound as nice as the earlier Junos.

The JX-10 I just sold went for 450GBP which included the PG programmer. It sounded great, has a fantastic keyboard and is, in my opinion, a great analogue poly. However, it doesn't do snappy sounds since the envelopes are early digitally generated ones. The attack shape is not quite right and the release tails go a little murky at the lower end.

The JX and Alpha Juno use cascaded state variable filters in the form of the IR3R05 chip. This is not the best sounding of filters and the IR3109 (when wired in cascade as found in the JP4, JP8 and early Junos) is considerably more pleasant especially at high resonances. The two early Jupiters and Juno 6 and 60 also had hardware EGs so they do the snappy envelopes well.

I'd take a JX-10 over a JP4 in musical terms but for resale value the JP4 is the winner.

Nothing sounds like the MS-20 - and its near unique status gives rise to a high sale price. The supposed modular panel on the front gives it that vintage modular expensive look, but in reality its less flexible than it could have been.

So I guess there is some sort of logic in all these prices. It's the usual supply and demand.

I often wonder how long people keep hold of these things once they buy it.

[Dogboy73]

The second hand analogue synthmarket has gone completely crazy over the last decade. It's like footballers wages!! My mate bought a TB303 for £50 in 1992 from a guitar music shop. These go for anything from £1000 - £1500 these days. Insane!!

[stk]

Heh, I paid AU$200 (each) for two Roland RE-201s a while back. They fetch >1k these days

..then again, I just paid probably too much for a Roland JC-120 combo amp.. but I've always wanted one, so

.. friend of a friend scored TWO MS-20s from a school just last year for AU$50. That's for both, mind, not each.

[yellowfever]

I was looking at Roland TR727's at the weekend, which sold for about £100 a year ago - £350 now !!!! Why??????

[thecontrolcentre]

I was looking at Roland TR727's at the weekend, which sold for about £100 a year ago - £350 now !!!! Why??????

It's the law of supply and demand. No-one wanted them a year ago ... now they do.

[paladium]

the whole techno analogueinterest initially came from poverty not interest in sound , when i started buying analogs in 1985 - 1988 they were very cheap
(ms20 was an overly common synth on the 2nd market, so were monophonic moogs
, arps , sequentials you name it) price for monophonics was 100 to 150 euro, bigger polys around 200 to 450 euro (yes prophets , jupiters, obxa , small modulars nobody wanted these in the late 80s)

The original techno producers used them because they couldnt afford
highend dx's or d50s , not because analogs sounded better (just because they
couldnt afford the digital stuff), in the 90s it became the reverse , digital was common and analogs started to go up , no analog monophonic synth is worth the price they ask nowadays and very few polyphonics either , and 90 percent of what is offered is way past its technical lifespan (and no replacing original components with equivalents or caps doesnt make it sound like it originally did) , software is an ok replacement and although it never sounds like the originals it has so much to go for (no more of that 'will it still work today'
when you power up vintage analog gear)

[himalaya]

Some time ago in the early 90s I saw a Korg MonoPoly in a second-hand music shop. I think it was slighly tatty, but everything worked though. It was priced at about £50, if not less. . I though to myself "oh that's expensive", and did not buy it. How little did I know...

[justin3am]

Here in LA you can find some pretty good deals if you know where to look. Some pawn shop owners still aren't internet savvy, old ladies hold estate sales and clear out their dead husbands studios for pennies.

Last year a friend of mine beat me to a 606 and 303 that were selling for $200 a piece. The same person bought an Arp 2600 and Sequencer for $600 total. He's a "synth-broker" so that is what he does. He finds awesome deals via Craig's List and pawn shop hunting, then makes huge profit fixing them up and selling on ebay.

[thecontrolcentre]

A friend of mine bought a Crumar Spirit from a junk shop for £20. The guy who ran the shop thought it was broken because it didn't make any noise (no built-in speakers). He had a PSS-680 going for £30 ...

[kritikon]

I remember buying a 606 and 303 as a paired item. When I sold them (before the prices went through the roof), it was actually easier to sell the 606 than the 303 - I ended up almost giving the 303 away as a tempter for the 606. 'S a funny old world.

I almost bought a JP6 before I came over to NZ - saw one going for 500 quid (around 10 yrs ago). Wish I had - just can't get analogues here at all. What they go for nowadays?

[do_androids_dream]

around 1992 there was an arp odyssey with a £50 tag sitting in the upstairs room at my local music shop. i always used to look at it not really knowing what it was or what it sounded like. it sat there for at least a year and then disappeared. always regretted not buying it! i did buy a poly 800 for £80 about a year later from the shop though - mind you they don't go for much more now.

bargain my dad found recently (which i quickly 'acquired' from him!) - yamaha cs5 for £25 out of a charity shop. pristine condition too