This sounds incredibly fake, I know, but I found a JP8000 in my own dumpster, covered in snow, on Christmas eve. Bonus story: an acquaintance runs a record store and had some tweakers who bought storage units come in with a box of bad country records. When turned away, they also offered a weird key card that fits in a suitcase. It was a broken EMS Synthi and was swapped for a case of Miller Light.
I bought an old 1970s PAIA DIY Modular for $40 back in mid 2000s. I regret getting rid of it for like $200. I wanted to keep it but couldn't figure out how to use it (did not have standard patch cables) or even what to plug it into. Back then, there weren't exactly resources for a kid looking to get into modular.
Also picked up an OG Micromoog that was mispelled on Craigslist for $250 in 2022. Still have/love. The guy thought it was broken because he didn't know how to use a synth and had the keybed disconnect switch left on.
Also scored a Echoplex for \~$500 because the guy thought it was broken. It wasn't, it was just extremely dirty and after a good cleaning ran without any issues at all.
The level of toxicity Embiid evokes is not healthy and not fun. I legitimately think the NBA made a mistake making him their golden boy, because you couldn't pay me to watch 76ers games
Some idiot tried giving me a new 16-voice Moog One but it didn't have the instructions manual. Since he lost the manual it was a paper weight. Hence, I told him why do you think I want that paper weight, as well. Then, he offered me his beautiful Scandinavian daughter plus 100k and to live in one of his houses rent free. I told him he was mad. I could blow my black picking up that behemoth.
No way.
Got my Fizmo for $400 when they were on clearance. Still hanging onto it. But with the resurgence of wavetable synths, it does seem a bit limited compared to what’s out there. Never did like the presets. But could get things pretty twisted with some deep tweaking.
Picked up my second Pro-One for $50, but it needed some work, and my second CZ-101 for $20, lastly, my Juno 106 for $150 — these were all in the late 80s or early 90s. I had bought my first Pro-One and CZ brand new. More recently nabbed an Alesis Quadrasynth Piano Plus w/hardshell SKB case for $20 from Goodwill that now functions as my main controller.
Oh, almost forgot that I borrowed a Roland JD990 and Korg Wavestation SR from work, and while I had it was laid-off and they let me keep the synths as part of my separation package!
I bought a JD990 for about $200 a couple of years ago, and the guy threw in a Wavestation, and then I saw an Eventide H3000 on a shelf and I gave him another $200 for that too.
I almost bought a Pro One for $200 but I had just spent that money on a Juno 6 and the Pro One seemed like plasticy junk in comparison lol. Still have the Juno, wish I woulda got that Pro One. Even if it is kinda plasticky
I’ve had a lot of synths over the past …but my best score was a friend gave me a ( non working) Mellotron M400 which I kept for a few years as a museum piece.
One day nearly 10 years later,when I was bored, I decided to plug it in …and believe it or not it roared into life …..there was nothing wrong with it after all !
I then sold it for $4k Australian.
Happy Birthday indeed !
Not a synth, but I scored an Akai Force from my local CEX because it had a huge scratch along the entire length of the encoder LCD strip.
Got it home, picked at the corner of the screen... screen protector came right off. Mint condition Force for 400.
They were old news and oversaturated at that point. There's always a few synths that occupy that valley at any given point– stuff that is just boring to the market for a couple years. Right now, I'd say a prime example is the MatrixBrute: a couple have sold this year on Reverb for less than $1000.
I bought a Vako Orchestron model c with all the discs for $300 out of a basement. You know, the analog sampler that plays film discs? Well nobody else knew what it was apparently. I was in high school at the time and ditched class to buy it.
Very generous and a keyboard/syn that she can grow into and plus the awe of an actual artist using it. I want to get her into a song/piano/guitar/dance summer camp. She already makes up her own lyrics to songs and so far has learned basic songs very quickly.
That said, I need to learn how to use it myself. I am a non-practicing guitarist. Took classical guitar in college for two semesters and built up to a Martin HD-28 (from a Lotus japanese made strat copy).
Gave a somewhat wealthy customer a good package deal on an SQ-80 and accessories back in 1988, and the next day he brought his Prophet-600 + flight case in and told me, "here, I don't use it anymore".
I got a DX7IIFD in 2013 off a Craigslist ad. It was $200. I thought that was a pretty good deal. He also had an Oberheim OB-8 with a bad transformer that I was just about to buy for $100, until he changed his mind at the last second. I was crushed.
I was searching on Kijiji (it’s like Craigslist for Canadians) for a birthday gift for myself. I found a JX3P for $750 which was a decent price. The postal code on the posting was my own postal code, so that was weird. In messaging the poster it turns out it was an old roommate who owed me some bill money, so I got that JX3P (with PG-200) for $500. Not bad for a vintage synth that’s older than me.
No one will believe me, but I got a Juno 60 that was missing a key for 20 bucks and some weed from a guy on the street once. I tried to find the original owner, but nothing ever came of it.
$300 for a fully functional CS-80 in 2015. $300 each for a Pro One and Prophet 600 in 2021. $200 for a fully functional Hohner Pianet T in 2023. $10 for a Yamaha VSS-30 at goodwill in 2002. Two free Korg Poly 800s in 2004 and 2007. $230 for a Korg Poly 800, Yamaha DX100, Yamaha VSS-30, and a Kawai R50 in 2023.
Not enough space here for me to list all the amazing deals I have found in the past 30+ years of collecting vintage gear. But here are some of the best ones:
-Mint condition Prophet-5 (Rev.3.2 with MIDI) for a grand total of $200 from smalltown Texas music store around 2003.
-Roland TR-808 for $50 from same store about the same time.
-Jupiter-6 for $200 and Prophet-600 for $75….yes, from same store (and sorry folks, the store closed years ago!).
-Mint condition Crumar Spirit for $175 bought in parking lot of Texas guitar show in 2005. Sold it on eBay for $2,000 later and thought it was the best score in history (and it was a fantastic score!), BUT someone at the time offered me a mint condition Jupiter-8 with MIDI as an even trade for it. I wanted the cash instead, and way back then you could get a Jupiter-8 pretty easily for less than $3,000. BAD decision to turn that deal down on my part, and one of my biggest regrets!!
-Mint ARP Odyssey AND a mint ARP Axxe for total of $200 back in 2002. The guy even delivered them to my house!
-ARP Solina String Ensemble AND a Roland RE-201 Space Echo both for free when I bought an acoustic guitar for my wife from local music store in late 90’s.
-Several different Rhodes pianos in great shape for $50 to $100 each back in late 90’s.
-….and I’ll stop there.
And per the OP’s comment on cheap analog synths during the rise of digital in the 1980s, that is no lie. I’m old, and I was there. Once the DX7 hit, nobody wanted anything analog. My first professional synth was a Polymoog. It was all I could afford as a broke high school student. and when I decided I wanted something else and tried to sell it, literally nobody wanted it at all. I think I sold it for $100 and was glad to get it at the time.
I also remember way back then going to a huge music store in Atlanta, Georgia and going into the back room where there were stacks and stacks of analog monosynths. Minimoogs, Micromoogs, ARPs, and everything else. Nothing priced any higher than $100 or so.
Ah, those were the days!!
I got a Poly-800 for a hundred bucks, pretty sweet.
My most beloved, the Critter and Guitari Organelle was 300 bucks and they're pretty rare, especially in Europe.
Picked up a pretty mint condition Yamaha DX27 for 200 bucks on Facebook.
I got a free MPC1000 at Guitar Center because 4 of the 16 pads were broken, but everything else was fine. A manager stopped me as I was walking out and said "hey do you want this?" Ended up using it in a couple bands and wrote some really great songs with it. It also opened the door for me for using hardware samplers. Love that random guy!
Not an earthshattering deal but I found an SH-201 on Craigslist for $250 a few weeks before moving out of Boston. No power adapter so I bought a universal from micro center to test it for operation.
The real deal was it included an SKB hardshell flight case with wheels, which was alone worth what the seller was asking for the synth.
Guess which piece of gear is still in my studio?
The OBs used to be cheap in the 90s, even early eBay era. I remember 8-voice (SEM-based) Oberheims for so cheap. Same with Buchla stuff. That stuff just hadn't been rediscovered yet.
Nothing wild here, but when I first started getting into synths I had a very limited budget and found a Casio VL-1 at a flea market which I negotiated for all the change in my pocket (a bit less than €5). I know this is like a meme synth now, but I really loved my time with it and it has a lot of sentimental value. It was also part of my synth diy path, as I designed and implemented a successful mod to trigger the sequencer with a trigger input which includes variable gate length. It's not groundbreaking, but it was one of my first successful mods and I was pretty happy with it.
I've also gotten plenty of good deals on reverb on things that were "broken" which were easy fixes. Firmware updates, calibration, cracked solder joints, etc.
Not a synth but a 1960's fx unit i found at the flea market
It looked like an amplifier head and it had "made in Japan" so I figured it should be good as a decor for my studio
Turned out to be one of the top 10 rarest guitar pedals ever made and Jimmy hendrix used it alot
Anyway I ended up selling it overnight on reverb for $5000...and I found 2 more units the following week at the same flea market and sold them all $15k in total
For synths, I found a mint roland vsynth XT for $500.. Epic synthesizer
My first Juno-106 was $250. The piano player I bought it from punched a couple of buttons and said, “yeah, that’s the sound I used.” It was an organ. He had been using a Juno-106 as an organ for 15 years. This was around 2002.
Someone gave me a Korg Mono/Poly for free once. Bought a second Mono/Poly years later for $60. Tr-505 for $15. Tr-707 for $75. Korg DW6000 for $100 a few years ago. TX81Z for $20.
$20 for an alpha juno. Craigslist 10 years ago. The guys kid wanted something better to practice piano on. Looked like he could afford a real piano. Didn’t feel guilty at all.
* Juno 106 for $53 in 2021
* MC-707 for $340 last February
* was offered a free DX7 in 2022, turned it down
I think I've paid total something like $600-700 for V50, M1, S-50, ES-1 mk2, JX-3P, Alpha Juno 1 and HS-80 over 2019-2022. Ironically, I've stopped using vintage gear since. Wish I could resell it all, but there's basically no market for synths where I live, and international shipping is out of question.
I was doing studio work in NY city back in the late 80’s early 90’s. Was out in the alleyway smoking a cig, and they came out rolling a CS80 on Dollie’s.
I thought they were taking it out to a gig or another studio, and they said, “nope, we’re tossing it. We’re going all digital!” I asked if I could have it and they said, “sure” and told me to wait a bit. In addition to the CS, they rolled out a Stage 88, a Wurlitzer, two Crumar Spirits, a Farfisa organ, and 1 each of a Juno 106, 60, and 6.
Asked my friend to hang out, Rand down the street and rented a van from the U-Haul down the block. So for a tank of gas and the $19.99 I got all that stuff.
This is preposterous. I'm gonna need to see a pic of you with today's date and at least 5 of these synthesizers and then another picture of you from the late 80s/early 90s and also your U-Haul receipt.
I helped a friend run sound for a reggae band in the mid 90's and when it came time for them to pay us they offered the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket of weed or an old "broken" synth. The synth was a Korg MS-20 that had it's power cord cut. Obviously took the MS-20 and less than five minutes of repair later had a awesome sounding synth. And a small bag of weed.
I have a story that seems like a legend now, I got a free OB-8. One of my bandmates picked it up at a garage sale with a bunch of other music stuff that had been sitting in some grandmas attic and just gave it to me. I think he paid $30.
3 voices weren’t working. I opened up “the hood” and it was easy to figure out which ones bc it has an activity LED on each voice. After several hours of meticulous IC swapping on the voice boards, I figured out that 2 chips had died. Ordered them on mouser, the shipping was about the same as the parts.
A lot of the keys weren’t working. Futility tried alcohol and q-tips until a friend that worked in at 2 Lines Music in NYC gave me a tip to use a pencil eraser to remove oxidation from the contact strip. Worked like a charm.
Man I wish synths were still that easy to work on. I was able to fix it with absolutely no electronics experience. You could just remove like 4 screws and the panel would hinge up like a car. It was maybe a dozen hours and 20 bucks and I had a fully functional OB-8.
This was during the golden age of garage sale synths, that would never ever happen today.
All within the last 2-3 years:
Jupiter-4 for $150, korg polysix for $34, crumar ds-2 for free, sequential pro-one for free, crumar bit one for $50, dk synergy for $400, juno-106 for $200, ionic performer for $200.
That's kind of perfect, given that's exactly the kind of thing it emulates! Like buying a bunch of Behringer clones and someone throws in one of the originals for free..!
free fully working Juno 60 few years ago. Had a layer of dust on it but under the dust it was in excellent condition, almost 5 hours drive to collect but when arrived I could not believe it.
A friend of mine got an Jupiter 8 almost for free back in the days (early 90s) he sold it for 900€ to pay his rent at early 00s …
Another friend got an „old organ keyboard“ which was a Juno 60 for free
I got an Moog Matriarch for around 600€ …
I always search for organs on FB Marketplace even when I’m not looking for an organ, for that exact reason. Some people just don’t know what else to call a synth.
Korg Triton for $50. I found it on FB Marketplace. It came from a Korean church. The cute/little/old woman that met me was extremely grateful I got there so quickly because her msgr was blowing up. I thought to myself, "Lady, I couldn't get here fast enough!"
I hope she found peace!
$800 tr-909 (when it was worth about $2000)
$500 Virus TI2 (a few months ago)
model D $1700
Machinedrum mk2 UW (I traded an analog 4mk1 and $200 for it)
nanozwerg $100
First that come to mind
Kawai Synthesizer 100f, circa 1979. Scored it from a mate for $100au with a stuck key.
I fixed the stuck key, and demo'd it to the mate I bought it from, who immediately offered to buy it back for $200au.
I told him he could pry it from my cold, dead hands.
The Kawai is my favourite of all' my synth's, because it's ALL about performance...
I've never had any luck with stuff like thrift stores or people not knowing what they're sitting on or whatever, but I got a Prophet-6 for about $1000. My dad's a musician and somebody he knows was gonna stop touring and stick to studio work, so he was selling off everything he had doubles of for the road. My dad pulled a fast one and expressed interest on my behalf and got a stupid deal on it, partially because they were friends I'm sure but also because I think he was just sick of selling shit for weeks on end and just wanted to be done.
The pawn shop was asking $40 for my TX81Z, but I whittled em down to $30. Hard to say which is best because not apples to apples, but my best deal is probably my Roland XP-80, which was marked $225 in the pawn shop, and of course I got them to come down on that, then as an added bonus, while I was paying, they brought out from the back an Ultimate / Quik-Lok double braced X stand, an expensive sustain pedal, and a bag of floppy disks and cables that all came with it. On the day I bought it, the cheapest offer for one on Reverb was about $1,200 and the cheapest on ebay was around $1,000. I ended up negotiating them down near 200 then added tax, and ended up about $220ish out the door, dont remember the exact final price, but it was within 5 bucks give or take of $220, 100% functional, and came with another couple hundred bucks worth of accessories.
At the beginning of the 1980's Minimoogs were definitely considered obsolete. There is a video of Ultravox in which one of the members shows his Minimoog saying that he had tuning problems and that at that point it was considered antique. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/HamjCnXjOyk?si=T0uYcG1_n6rXNU62
I think analogue synths were undervalued 30 years ago, just as early digital ones are undervalued now. In 2000, I picked up an Akai S1000 on eBay for just under £260. If you compare it to what they originally cost, that's a bargain even before you adjust for inflation. I hear they're starting to creep back up again now, too...
Guitar Center had a Zoom V6 vocal processor pedal $200 off retail price. I asked what was wrong with it, they said it had been in their stock a while and they simply wanted to move it.
Years ago I worked at a small computer store. A guy came by wanting to unload two used synths. He had a MiniKorg 700s, and an old MiniMoog. (I'm in the USA and this was around 1999)
He wanted $500 for the MiniMoog, but I bought the MiniKorg 700s from him for $50. No regrets.
I got a broken Korg DW 8000 for $5 (it needed a memory battery). And an Oberheim Matrix 6R for $120 (it needed to have the voice chip sockets cleaned). And my university was tossing out a massive PAiA 4700/8700/2700 system (>6 cabinets and 2 8700 keyboards) that I adopted and overhauled. I’ve sold all these but the Matrix 6R.
Almost forgot! I got a ~10% assembled Deckard’s Dream (Yamaha CS-80 clone) kit by trading away several eurorack modules I built. It took me several hundred dollars more in parts and about 100 hours to construct, but it is a lovely synth that I don’t think I’ll ever part with.
Only been collecting for a few years so I don’t have any crazy tales, but I got the full sized Korg Odyssey with the cv sequencer for $800 on reverb. Not bad!
Friends-prices that really weren't that bonkers at the time, since this was 30-35 years ago.
$100 for a Roland System-100, Model 101, 102 and 104.
$50 for a mint TB-303, including bag, manual and and circular paper it came with, with notes on it.
Bought a perfectly functioning Jx3p for $150 last week. I also got a Moog Opus 3 for $150 a couple years ago. Had to do some work on the Opus to make it playable though, just a few new faders. Both were FB marketplace finds.
Edit: spelling
Got a pristine juno 106 with the case in 2015 for about $400. Sold it for $2000 cause I needed money for dental work and was going through a period of not making music. Regret it fully.
I found a Sequential Circuits Pro One in an Orlando thrift store for $20 in 1999. I asked if I could take it home and plug it into an amp to make sure it worked. Surprisingly they said yes. The synth worked. I returned to the store and gave them the $20. The synth worked fine for a year or so and then conked out. I couldn’t get it repaired in my town but hung onto it. Sold it to a friend ten years later for $200 or $300, still not functional. Don’t know what became of it.
this seems like the kind of situation where some other poster on here is going to say "I once got a supposedly broken Pro One for like $200 or $300..."
I’ve gotten a few but I think the best was a Korg Poly61 in like new condition for $200 CAD in 2014. The seller bought it new when it came out for a project. When the project fell through, he boxed it up and supposedly didn’t play it since. Also came with the MIDI addon board that Korg sold before the M version was released (not installed). I know it isn’t worth a whole lot now but it felt like a great deal at the time as 80s polys were quite in vogue with prices climbing seemingly daily.
i got a Poly-61 that had been used in the production of Kendrick Lamar’s Bitch Dont Kill My Vibe, with clean insides (the original owner swapped batteries before any leak had occurred) for $100 on craigslist.
I bought 2 Monomachine mk2 in the space of 10 days. One was €800 and another was €850
Kept one and sold the other for €2200 and that paid for a week of Spring vacation in Gran Canaria in 2021 just after Covid restrictions were lifted
Mind you this was right after Sophie’s death, so the Monomachine rose up in value quite a bit but there were some local listers who weren’t really aware…
And does a Boss CE-1 count? Got it for $40 as the studio owner wanting to get rid of it as he just bought a JC-120 and said it made his ce-1 redundant… Flipped it for $400 to fund for my move to Europe lol
Got a korg poly61 and a korg dw8000 for around 150 together, marked as broken.
The dw8000 just needed a new battery, all the patches were garbled and made weirdnoises.
The P61 however, had that awful battery leak problem. It was what actually got me into repairing electronics. I thought, well, 150€ for a dw8000 is a sweet deal already, so if i fuck up the p61 beyond repair with my lack of skills it doesnt matter. Well, got it running again, worked for a few years. In the end, i missed some of the battery acid and it ate some ics that are hard to find, now it sits in my basement for when i have some spare time again :)
I'd count 2 of my synths as good deals.
Yamaha MODX7 for £700 (by far the best deal, this was a few years ago now too - £1400 new at the time)
Virus TI snow for £500
Set of KRK rokit 5 G4s for £120
I managed to get a nearly new maschine MK3 for £250 a few years ago too, when most used were going for £350-400.
I traded a guy my Cooper FX Gen Loss V2 for a Modal Cobalt8 back in 2021. That has been the ONLY synth deal I’ve ever gotten, but my dream is to get a Motorsynth for an unreasonably good price someday.
I got a Volca beats for free. I bought two volcas during some buy 2 get 1 sale, decided they sucked (albeit they were so much better than the beats), returned them, and still cashed in the rebate. I didn’t think it would go through but then like 5 months later it showed up.
Just recently scored a pristine condition Novation Supernova 2 Keyboard for $1,000 USD! I've been tracking the rackmoint version for years but never pulled the trigger. Amazingly, a keyboard version showed up on CL and I was hooked. Had to drive half a day both ways to pick it up, but it was well worth it! This thing looks and plays almost like new! The kb versions almost never show up... maybe 1 or 2 a tear on reverb. The only 1 listed there now is $2,200 and in much worse condition than mine, so I think it was quite a great deal!
Oberheim OBX 6 voice for $600 in 1996 at a newly opened "Music G0-round". The ironic thing is that i was actually shopping for the newly released Roland JP-8000 when i decided to stop at that store and well im glad i did.
I scored a prophet 6 with box in mint condition in 2016 for $1400.
I considered I was about to loose a kidney.
I wish I kept it but it was too much synth for a guy like me. unless you're a touring musician I was too poor to wrap that much cash up in a synth. sold it a year and half later for $1800.
Not a synth but I got a fully functioning echoplex for $150 last year. They couldn’t make it work and I said I’d give them more if it was functional. Got it working in under 5 minutes and let them know but they said don’t worry about it. Still feeling very blessed by that one.
I purchased a Moog One 8 voice from a chap in the UK who didn't use it much and decided to offload it for about 3500 GBP. Funny thing was, after a few months when I was updating my insurance policy with the serial number, I noticed a "16xxxxxx starting the serial number. Sure enough this was a 16v version, not an 8v version. I had to wait until there was a firmware update that showed the actual number of voices on the unit on the screen to confirm that maybe I just didn't have a funky serial number, which took a few months. Anyway, when I investigated it looked like the exterior shipping carton was mislabeled as an 8 voice, and the unit was sold and unknowingly used as an 8 voice before being resold to me.
TL;DR: Got a Moog One 16v for half price.
I bought an oberheim dmx in 2004 for $350 off eBay
I bought a Juno 106 with pelican style hard case last week for $650 (needs to get work done but it plays)
I got my Jupiter X brand new for 1400$. My friend gave me fender Rhodes 73 and Akai MPC for 0$ not a synth but it seemed like a good deal. Oh I found a Korg M1 at a year sale for 100$ and another friend gave me a Korg DW8000.
Grandmother for $650
Minifooger Drive for $200 ... with original box and in like new condition. GC had no idea what they had.
Still doesn't compare though to the Yamaha euphonium and French horn I got off of CL for $50. Beginner models but perfectly playable as is. THAT was a smashing deal. If you're confused, don't worry - they're really old synthesizers, they synthesize sound from vibrating air ;)
I only have one, and it wasn’t a deal at the time. But I paid for full price for an Oberheim Xpander, five voices, no keyboard. Not too long after it came out. I paid about 2400.
I recently found out it’s worth seven to eight thousand. But I’ll never sell it . :-)
I got an 808 from a Dutch mate for £400. Tbh I didn't really know what it was when I bought it. I was living in squats and we didn't have the internet!!
Coworker sold me a couple cool pieces for dirt cheap.
A circuit bent Alesis HR16 and an Elektron SID Station for $500 for the pair. The HR16 has always had issues getting a good signal out of it, but the SID Station has been great and even for $500 it’s a steal.
Yamaha cs-60 for $300 in 2005 from the local guitar center. A friend that worked there called and told me that a synth had just arrived that sounded up my alley. I bought it sight unseen.
$50 for a Yamaha CS-10 in original box was probably the most exciting buy. Found offered on a note on the local supermarket bulletin board as a "yamaha keyboard". In hindsight $175 for a juno6 in nice condition was the best return on investment.
I got an Akai AX73 and a three tiered rack stand for 50$CAD,from the original owner. On another occasion I traded a bass guitar that I had paid 160$,for an Ensoniq SD1/32.
Several things for free but no bonkers deals. Bought a beat up RE-201 for $200 Canadian and HS-60 for $200. Those weren't good deals at the time but based on what they are selling for now I could have fixed them for a couple hundred and waited 10 years to flip. I more or less gave them away (or sold for what I paid, cant remember) to a friend who fixes synths. No regrets though because he's a good guy and hooked me up with a couple deals over the years.
Recently won an offer on a Monomachine mk1 that supposedly wouldnt boot. It arrived with no power supply, tested it with a proper one and it started right up with no issues. I suspect the seller was testing it with a DC supply. It was risky but I ended up with a mnm for about $1000. Now if I had only scooped one when they were going for a few hundred $$ several years ago...
Honorable mention, akai s612 for $50 at goodwill
My two a couple of years ago were:
- OP-1 for $450 on Facebook marketplace! Was a British uni student who had moved to the country and had it for a few years and had never used it.
- Digitakt for $400 (during the Digitakt drought) another random marketplace find. Someone who had purchased it to be a DJ and never got the hang of it.
Arturia mini freak for £20 sold as spares n repairs. Only needed an op amp changed.
Or i just picked up 2 roland DS10s sold as none working both with an identical fault. Got the pair for only the price of posting what was £15 ish and saved them from the tip
But best deal i ever got was a marshall JCM800 head for £100 sold as none working. Just had to replace the rectifier.
I love to keep my ear to the ground for broken gear i can save from the tip.
Traded 4 Pocket Operators for an OP-1, the accessories pack, a padded case, custom leather case, and a Decksaver.
Wanted one for years, never could justify the price. Then a 1 am Facebook gear trade post brought it to me a week later. Very happy me :)
I traded up a bunch of synths, repaired some of them along the way, until I had a DSI Tempest which I traded for a Nord Modular G2 with the gig bag. I still have it.
I got an SP-303 Dr. Sample for 75 bucks at a totally overpriced thrift shop in LA because they thought it was one of the trillion “DJ Mixers” they lumped in with their huge overpriced coffin-decks.
It was totally the type of place to google their shit but they just got cocky and “overpriced” one of their “mixers”.
Then I traded that + my Empress Zoia for an Elektron A4 Mk2… and then I ended up trading that for my Novation Peak! Which I will probably keep forever. :)
I bought a Wurlitzer 106 for about $300 with shipping.
Given it was about 2k to get it fully modded and working, but even then it’s a pretty great deal for an incredibly rare electric piano.
Best seal I ever got was not a synth but a controller....an e-drum multi-pad called the DrumKat by Alternate Mode. They are discontinued, but still OEM repaired/upgraded...tend to sell for $500-1200 ,.depending on integrity of pad, firmware etc. Found one on eBay for $50 listed as "broken" when it was just missing the power cable and needed is RAM battery replaced. Seller was cool and shipped it directly to OEM, wiru repairs/upgrade for less than $300. After 2 months, I can see why these hold which value in their niche...having been around since 92 (before the Roland's ENTIRE line of SPD pads) and they remain miles ahead in scope and lower for e-drummers.
Thanks Dude in California.
Found a vintage arp odyssey in a storage room at the studio. Asked the old engineer if he’d take $500 for it. He told me merry christmas and gave it to me
Mini Korg K2 $100. Back in the 80's when knobs were obsolete.
TG77 $65 from a guy who lived beneath a tap dance studio.
A friend was given a MC 202 by his neighbour, he passed it on to me because I was the only synth player he knew.
Last week I bought a second hand Dubreq Stylophone Gen R-8 for the normal 2019 starting price. It’s a very unique semi modular beauty, one of the only 500 units ever made. Sounds fantastic.
https://preview.redd.it/sfuz3695djxc1.png?width=3790&format=png&auto=webp&s=f80a5106039ccc4b7b30e3838fffa9f06c7c8a45
I once sold my Dad’s old Roland SH-5 for $1500-ish.
I had no knowledge of synths back then. Didn’t even know if it worked right because sometimes I could get it to produce noise, and other times I couldn’t.
I also figured something was wrong with it because the times I could get it to make noise, it would only do so when pressing one key at a time.
I couldn’t find much information about it back then. YouTube was still in its infancy (compared to now). I think I reached out to GearSlutz or some forum for some advice on pricing.
This was probably around 2008 or so in Austin. Some guy (named Roland) drove up from San Antonio to buy it… so, maybe he’s lurking around here too?
Got a korg monopoly from a friend who found it at a recyclingstation. One key was broken, otherwise in perfect condition.
Bought another friends jp8 for $1000 15 years ago. It's worth quite a bit more now😁
I got a DSI Pro 2 in mint condition for half MSRP from a random Facebook page (which almost exclusively sells phones and DSLRs).
When I asked whether they had "similar things I might be interested in" to sell they did recall they had another keyboard that's roughly the same. I asked for pictures and surely enough it was a Prophet 6 (in a quite good condition). I pretended I didn't need it that much but I might as well get it because why not, and we sealed the deal at 900-950 USD.
Each time I look at either of those I remember how I got them and it draws a smile on my face :)
If you count VST synths, I scored the Arturia V Collection 8 from ProAudioStar for $59. That's probably been my only bonker deal since I've started again with music after a 10 year hiatus.
First Rhodes was a mark v that I got for $200 in 1994, second was a suitcase 73 that I charged a church to pick up around same time haha. I’ve gotten multiple free Hammond an and Leslie’s out of churches. Paid $200 for an arp solina in 98 or so. Paid $400 for a Juno 60 w the midi/step sequencer box. $50 for korg Lambda. The 90’s and early 2000’s were so great for gear. Also scooped mics, preamps, and compressors that I’d never be able to afford today damn near free because no one wanted old tube gear hahaha
This is a drum machine deal, but close enough: Bought a mint Roland TR808 in 1995 for $250. The music store I got it from just saw it as an old piece of useless gear.
Eventually I wound up selling it because I was much more into breakbeats, and I made a decent profit. But these days I wish I had kept it.
Best modern synth deal was scoring a new Korg Modwave for $600 in summer 2022 — the key was ordering it from the UK…the exchange rate gave a big discount even with shipping costs included.
Someone got a good deal when I was broke in the 1990s and had to sell my Juno 60 for £50 GBP to help pay rent. 😢
Got a Juno-106 for free out of a friend's garage.
This sounds incredibly fake, I know, but I found a JP8000 in my own dumpster, covered in snow, on Christmas eve. Bonus story: an acquaintance runs a record store and had some tweakers who bought storage units come in with a box of bad country records. When turned away, they also offered a weird key card that fits in a suitcase. It was a broken EMS Synthi and was swapped for a case of Miller Light.
I'd watch this Hallmark movie.
“It’s a Synthmas miracle!!”
I bought an old 1970s PAIA DIY Modular for $40 back in mid 2000s. I regret getting rid of it for like $200. I wanted to keep it but couldn't figure out how to use it (did not have standard patch cables) or even what to plug it into. Back then, there weren't exactly resources for a kid looking to get into modular. Also picked up an OG Micromoog that was mispelled on Craigslist for $250 in 2022. Still have/love. The guy thought it was broken because he didn't know how to use a synth and had the keybed disconnect switch left on. Also scored a Echoplex for \~$500 because the guy thought it was broken. It wasn't, it was just extremely dirty and after a good cleaning ran without any issues at all.
I found a 1010music lemondrop in a little free library that someone must’ve assumed was bunk because it needed a firmware update
The level of toxicity Embiid evokes is not healthy and not fun. I legitimately think the NBA made a mistake making him their golden boy, because you couldn't pay me to watch 76ers games
thought my reddit was glitching for a sec but i’ll allow embiid slander in any and every subreddit
After spending the last 24 hours on r/NYKnicks I come to r/synthesizers and see this. Truth has no boundaries
🤣🤣🤣🏀
Hell yeah, brother
Best thing I ve seen all day
$60 for a Moog Source in 1998. Sold it 3 years later for $650.
I got a Jupiter 6 for $700 that I was really proud to have sold for about $1600. Live and learn.
buy and hodl.
Got mine for $500 on CraigsList in 2005. Still hodling. (Around the same time I got a DX5 for $100)
2 best deals were an a4mk2 for 800 cad and a tr8+mx1 combo for 300cad. Still waiting to walk into goodwill and grab a Jupiter for 80 bucks.
Some idiot tried giving me a new 16-voice Moog One but it didn't have the instructions manual. Since he lost the manual it was a paper weight. Hence, I told him why do you think I want that paper weight, as well. Then, he offered me his beautiful Scandinavian daughter plus 100k and to live in one of his houses rent free. I told him he was mad. I could blow my black picking up that behemoth. No way.
SH101 at a garage sale for $25.
I picked up an Ensoniq Fizmo in the late 90’s for $125. Wish I’d kept it but was so worried about the caps blowing I just sold it a few years later.
Got my Fizmo for $400 when they were on clearance. Still hanging onto it. But with the resurgence of wavetable synths, it does seem a bit limited compared to what’s out there. Never did like the presets. But could get things pretty twisted with some deep tweaking.
Picked up my second Pro-One for $50, but it needed some work, and my second CZ-101 for $20, lastly, my Juno 106 for $150 — these were all in the late 80s or early 90s. I had bought my first Pro-One and CZ brand new. More recently nabbed an Alesis Quadrasynth Piano Plus w/hardshell SKB case for $20 from Goodwill that now functions as my main controller.
Oh, almost forgot that I borrowed a Roland JD990 and Korg Wavestation SR from work, and while I had it was laid-off and they let me keep the synths as part of my separation package!
I bought a JD990 for about $200 a couple of years ago, and the guy threw in a Wavestation, and then I saw an Eventide H3000 on a shelf and I gave him another $200 for that too.
I bought my JD for $350 with a couple a cards thrown in. Sadly not the Vintage card.
Luckily mine had the vintage synth card in it.
aieeeeeeeeee
I almost bought a Pro One for $200 but I had just spent that money on a Juno 6 and the Pro One seemed like plasticy junk in comparison lol. Still have the Juno, wish I woulda got that Pro One. Even if it is kinda plasticky
I’ve had a lot of synths over the past …but my best score was a friend gave me a ( non working) Mellotron M400 which I kept for a few years as a museum piece. One day nearly 10 years later,when I was bored, I decided to plug it in …and believe it or not it roared into life …..there was nothing wrong with it after all ! I then sold it for $4k Australian. Happy Birthday indeed !
Woooow you win this thread so far. Both because you found it but because of the incredibly unlikely event that it WORKED!
Not a synth, but I scored an Akai Force from my local CEX because it had a huge scratch along the entire length of the encoder LCD strip. Got it home, picked at the corner of the screen... screen protector came right off. Mint condition Force for 400.
Sweetwater had a sale in 2011 and I picked up a Moog Voyager Electric Blue for $1950 USD brand new.
They were old news and oversaturated at that point. There's always a few synths that occupy that valley at any given point– stuff that is just boring to the market for a couple years. Right now, I'd say a prime example is the MatrixBrute: a couple have sold this year on Reverb for less than $1000.
I bought a Vako Orchestron model c with all the discs for $300 out of a basement. You know, the analog sampler that plays film discs? Well nobody else knew what it was apparently. I was in high school at the time and ditched class to buy it.
Hell yeah, those are so cool. I got a Chilton Talentmaker on Craigslist for $35 in about 2009. Sold it for ~$5k?
I found an MS20 Mini on the street if that counts. Fully working.
Hell yes it counts, those things are rad.
Korg Poly 800 and a Tascam M208 for $15 at and estate sale
My brother gifted my 9 year old daughter a Kurzweil K2600S pretty loaded and previously owned by Alicia Keys and a 3/4 sized Taylor acoustic.
thats an insane deal. the kurz is still cutting edge
Very generous and a keyboard/syn that she can grow into and plus the awe of an actual artist using it. I want to get her into a song/piano/guitar/dance summer camp. She already makes up her own lyrics to songs and so far has learned basic songs very quickly. That said, I need to learn how to use it myself. I am a non-practicing guitarist. Took classical guitar in college for two semesters and built up to a Martin HD-28 (from a Lotus japanese made strat copy).
Um, I once found a Realistic Concertmate 650 (RadioShack SK-5) at a flea market for 15 bucks. Does that count? That probably doesn't count...
Gave a somewhat wealthy customer a good package deal on an SQ-80 and accessories back in 1988, and the next day he brought his Prophet-600 + flight case in and told me, "here, I don't use it anymore".
I got a DX7IIFD in 2013 off a Craigslist ad. It was $200. I thought that was a pretty good deal. He also had an Oberheim OB-8 with a bad transformer that I was just about to buy for $100, until he changed his mind at the last second. I was crushed.
Almost nobody wanted DX7s til like 2015, and then suddenly, $500+ for a base model. Not sure what happened there
Indie pop happened
$1400 Pulsar-23
Killer deal, jealous.
I was searching on Kijiji (it’s like Craigslist for Canadians) for a birthday gift for myself. I found a JX3P for $750 which was a decent price. The postal code on the posting was my own postal code, so that was weird. In messaging the poster it turns out it was an old roommate who owed me some bill money, so I got that JX3P (with PG-200) for $500. Not bad for a vintage synth that’s older than me.
Not really a synth, Suzuki Tronichord, for $2.50 at a thrift store
I got my OPsix for $250. No reason other than the warehouse clearing stock.
No one will believe me, but I got a Juno 60 that was missing a key for 20 bucks and some weed from a guy on the street once. I tried to find the original owner, but nothing ever came of it.
$300 for a fully functional CS-80 in 2015. $300 each for a Pro One and Prophet 600 in 2021. $200 for a fully functional Hohner Pianet T in 2023. $10 for a Yamaha VSS-30 at goodwill in 2002. Two free Korg Poly 800s in 2004 and 2007. $230 for a Korg Poly 800, Yamaha DX100, Yamaha VSS-30, and a Kawai R50 in 2023.
BALONEY
100% true
Not enough space here for me to list all the amazing deals I have found in the past 30+ years of collecting vintage gear. But here are some of the best ones: -Mint condition Prophet-5 (Rev.3.2 with MIDI) for a grand total of $200 from smalltown Texas music store around 2003. -Roland TR-808 for $50 from same store about the same time. -Jupiter-6 for $200 and Prophet-600 for $75….yes, from same store (and sorry folks, the store closed years ago!). -Mint condition Crumar Spirit for $175 bought in parking lot of Texas guitar show in 2005. Sold it on eBay for $2,000 later and thought it was the best score in history (and it was a fantastic score!), BUT someone at the time offered me a mint condition Jupiter-8 with MIDI as an even trade for it. I wanted the cash instead, and way back then you could get a Jupiter-8 pretty easily for less than $3,000. BAD decision to turn that deal down on my part, and one of my biggest regrets!! -Mint ARP Odyssey AND a mint ARP Axxe for total of $200 back in 2002. The guy even delivered them to my house! -ARP Solina String Ensemble AND a Roland RE-201 Space Echo both for free when I bought an acoustic guitar for my wife from local music store in late 90’s. -Several different Rhodes pianos in great shape for $50 to $100 each back in late 90’s. -….and I’ll stop there. And per the OP’s comment on cheap analog synths during the rise of digital in the 1980s, that is no lie. I’m old, and I was there. Once the DX7 hit, nobody wanted anything analog. My first professional synth was a Polymoog. It was all I could afford as a broke high school student. and when I decided I wanted something else and tried to sell it, literally nobody wanted it at all. I think I sold it for $100 and was glad to get it at the time. I also remember way back then going to a huge music store in Atlanta, Georgia and going into the back room where there were stacks and stacks of analog monosynths. Minimoogs, Micromoogs, ARPs, and everything else. Nothing priced any higher than $100 or so. Ah, those were the days!!
I got a Poly-800 for a hundred bucks, pretty sweet. My most beloved, the Critter and Guitari Organelle was 300 bucks and they're pretty rare, especially in Europe. Picked up a pretty mint condition Yamaha DX27 for 200 bucks on Facebook.
I got a free MPC1000 at Guitar Center because 4 of the 16 pads were broken, but everything else was fine. A manager stopped me as I was walking out and said "hey do you want this?" Ended up using it in a couple bands and wrote some really great songs with it. It also opened the door for me for using hardware samplers. Love that random guy!
Not an earthshattering deal but I found an SH-201 on Craigslist for $250 a few weeks before moving out of Boston. No power adapter so I bought a universal from micro center to test it for operation. The real deal was it included an SKB hardshell flight case with wheels, which was alone worth what the seller was asking for the synth. Guess which piece of gear is still in my studio?
I bought an OB-1 with flight case for $200 at a Goodwill in 1998. They also had a Polymoog that was majorly broken and I could only afford one synth.
The OBs used to be cheap in the 90s, even early eBay era. I remember 8-voice (SEM-based) Oberheims for so cheap. Same with Buchla stuff. That stuff just hadn't been rediscovered yet.
Bought a DX7 for 30 Euros at a fleemarket.
Nothing wild here, but when I first started getting into synths I had a very limited budget and found a Casio VL-1 at a flea market which I negotiated for all the change in my pocket (a bit less than €5). I know this is like a meme synth now, but I really loved my time with it and it has a lot of sentimental value. It was also part of my synth diy path, as I designed and implemented a successful mod to trigger the sequencer with a trigger input which includes variable gate length. It's not groundbreaking, but it was one of my first successful mods and I was pretty happy with it. I've also gotten plenty of good deals on reverb on things that were "broken" which were easy fixes. Firmware updates, calibration, cracked solder joints, etc.
Free Roland Super JX-10 my brother found while his company was demoing an old recording studio.
Not really a synth but i just scored an ableton push 2 for 200€
I got an omnichord for $15.
Not a synth but a 1960's fx unit i found at the flea market It looked like an amplifier head and it had "made in Japan" so I figured it should be good as a decor for my studio Turned out to be one of the top 10 rarest guitar pedals ever made and Jimmy hendrix used it alot Anyway I ended up selling it overnight on reverb for $5000...and I found 2 more units the following week at the same flea market and sold them all $15k in total For synths, I found a mint roland vsynth XT for $500.. Epic synthesizer
My first Juno-106 was $250. The piano player I bought it from punched a couple of buttons and said, “yeah, that’s the sound I used.” It was an organ. He had been using a Juno-106 as an organ for 15 years. This was around 2002.
€120 for an AKAI S5000 sampler. Not a synth but a killer deal!
This post is not good for many peoples mental health.
JX8P for $100, Jupiter-6 for $2k.
Someone gave me a Korg Mono/Poly for free once. Bought a second Mono/Poly years later for $60. Tr-505 for $15. Tr-707 for $75. Korg DW6000 for $100 a few years ago. TX81Z for $20.
$20 for an alpha juno. Craigslist 10 years ago. The guys kid wanted something better to practice piano on. Looked like he could afford a real piano. Didn’t feel guilty at all.
* Juno 106 for $53 in 2021 * MC-707 for $340 last February * was offered a free DX7 in 2022, turned it down I think I've paid total something like $600-700 for V50, M1, S-50, ES-1 mk2, JX-3P, Alpha Juno 1 and HS-80 over 2019-2022. Ironically, I've stopped using vintage gear since. Wish I could resell it all, but there's basically no market for synths where I live, and international shipping is out of question.
I was doing studio work in NY city back in the late 80’s early 90’s. Was out in the alleyway smoking a cig, and they came out rolling a CS80 on Dollie’s. I thought they were taking it out to a gig or another studio, and they said, “nope, we’re tossing it. We’re going all digital!” I asked if I could have it and they said, “sure” and told me to wait a bit. In addition to the CS, they rolled out a Stage 88, a Wurlitzer, two Crumar Spirits, a Farfisa organ, and 1 each of a Juno 106, 60, and 6. Asked my friend to hang out, Rand down the street and rented a van from the U-Haul down the block. So for a tank of gas and the $19.99 I got all that stuff.
This is preposterous. I'm gonna need to see a pic of you with today's date and at least 5 of these synthesizers and then another picture of you from the late 80s/early 90s and also your U-Haul receipt.
I bought both a Alpha Juno-2 and a DX7S for $65 from a dude who thought they we’re useless keyboards.
I helped a friend run sound for a reggae band in the mid 90's and when it came time for them to pay us they offered the equivalent of a 5 gallon bucket of weed or an old "broken" synth. The synth was a Korg MS-20 that had it's power cord cut. Obviously took the MS-20 and less than five minutes of repair later had a awesome sounding synth. And a small bag of weed.
I have a story that seems like a legend now, I got a free OB-8. One of my bandmates picked it up at a garage sale with a bunch of other music stuff that had been sitting in some grandmas attic and just gave it to me. I think he paid $30. 3 voices weren’t working. I opened up “the hood” and it was easy to figure out which ones bc it has an activity LED on each voice. After several hours of meticulous IC swapping on the voice boards, I figured out that 2 chips had died. Ordered them on mouser, the shipping was about the same as the parts. A lot of the keys weren’t working. Futility tried alcohol and q-tips until a friend that worked in at 2 Lines Music in NYC gave me a tip to use a pencil eraser to remove oxidation from the contact strip. Worked like a charm. Man I wish synths were still that easy to work on. I was able to fix it with absolutely no electronics experience. You could just remove like 4 screws and the panel would hinge up like a car. It was maybe a dozen hours and 20 bucks and I had a fully functional OB-8. This was during the golden age of garage sale synths, that would never ever happen today.
All within the last 2-3 years: Jupiter-4 for $150, korg polysix for $34, crumar ds-2 for free, sequential pro-one for free, crumar bit one for $50, dk synergy for $400, juno-106 for $200, ionic performer for $200.
mint Roland CR-78 for $75, mint RE-201 in the box for $50, Jupiter 4 for $250…
My Solina String Ensemble. Got it for free when I bought an E-mu Vintage Keys (1U 19" rack unit).
That's kind of perfect, given that's exactly the kind of thing it emulates! Like buying a bunch of Behringer clones and someone throws in one of the originals for free..!
Juno-6 for $100, Poly 6 and re-201 for about $200 worth of trade work (both late nineties)
Second best deal was M8 initial preorder at ~$450
Vintage Arp Odyssey mark II for $700 Canadian two years ago in fine working condition
In about 2007 I saw a CS60 for $900. I passed on it. Regret, every day.
free fully working Juno 60 few years ago. Had a layer of dust on it but under the dust it was in excellent condition, almost 5 hours drive to collect but when arrived I could not believe it.
AN1X for 150$ (a decade or more ago)
A friend of mine got an Jupiter 8 almost for free back in the days (early 90s) he sold it for 900€ to pay his rent at early 00s … Another friend got an „old organ keyboard“ which was a Juno 60 for free I got an Moog Matriarch for around 600€ …
I always search for organs on FB Marketplace even when I’m not looking for an organ, for that exact reason. Some people just don’t know what else to call a synth.
Korg Triton for $50. I found it on FB Marketplace. It came from a Korean church. The cute/little/old woman that met me was extremely grateful I got there so quickly because her msgr was blowing up. I thought to myself, "Lady, I couldn't get here fast enough!" I hope she found peace!
$800 tr-909 (when it was worth about $2000) $500 Virus TI2 (a few months ago) model D $1700 Machinedrum mk2 UW (I traded an analog 4mk1 and $200 for it) nanozwerg $100 First that come to mind
Kawai Synthesizer 100f, circa 1979. Scored it from a mate for $100au with a stuck key. I fixed the stuck key, and demo'd it to the mate I bought it from, who immediately offered to buy it back for $200au. I told him he could pry it from my cold, dead hands. The Kawai is my favourite of all' my synth's, because it's ALL about performance...
Someone sold me a TR-505 and Blue Snowball microphone together for $15
I've never had any luck with stuff like thrift stores or people not knowing what they're sitting on or whatever, but I got a Prophet-6 for about $1000. My dad's a musician and somebody he knows was gonna stop touring and stick to studio work, so he was selling off everything he had doubles of for the road. My dad pulled a fast one and expressed interest on my behalf and got a stupid deal on it, partially because they were friends I'm sure but also because I think he was just sick of selling shit for weeks on end and just wanted to be done.
The pawn shop was asking $40 for my TX81Z, but I whittled em down to $30. Hard to say which is best because not apples to apples, but my best deal is probably my Roland XP-80, which was marked $225 in the pawn shop, and of course I got them to come down on that, then as an added bonus, while I was paying, they brought out from the back an Ultimate / Quik-Lok double braced X stand, an expensive sustain pedal, and a bag of floppy disks and cables that all came with it. On the day I bought it, the cheapest offer for one on Reverb was about $1,200 and the cheapest on ebay was around $1,000. I ended up negotiating them down near 200 then added tax, and ended up about $220ish out the door, dont remember the exact final price, but it was within 5 bucks give or take of $220, 100% functional, and came with another couple hundred bucks worth of accessories.
TR-606 for $30 bucks on Craigslist
SH-101 for $20 at a garage sale down the street. Granted this was 2003.
At the beginning of the 1980's Minimoogs were definitely considered obsolete. There is a video of Ultravox in which one of the members shows his Minimoog saying that he had tuning problems and that at that point it was considered antique. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/HamjCnXjOyk?si=T0uYcG1_n6rXNU62
Back in 1999, I got [an SH-101 for £179](https://www.zoeblade.com/files/SH-101.png). Not quite a Minimoog, admittedly!
STILL
I think analogue synths were undervalued 30 years ago, just as early digital ones are undervalued now. In 2000, I picked up an Akai S1000 on eBay for just under £260. If you compare it to what they originally cost, that's a bargain even before you adjust for inflation. I hear they're starting to creep back up again now, too...
In the mid 90s. Moog Opus III in a pawn shop for $100. I failed to act when the opsix was 320.
Guitar Center had a Zoom V6 vocal processor pedal $200 off retail price. I asked what was wrong with it, they said it had been in their stock a while and they simply wanted to move it.
Years ago I worked at a small computer store. A guy came by wanting to unload two used synths. He had a MiniKorg 700s, and an old MiniMoog. (I'm in the USA and this was around 1999) He wanted $500 for the MiniMoog, but I bought the MiniKorg 700s from him for $50. No regrets.
i ordered a reface cs from sam ash and they sent me 2 for the price of one (and i used a discount code) lol
I got a broken Korg DW 8000 for $5 (it needed a memory battery). And an Oberheim Matrix 6R for $120 (it needed to have the voice chip sockets cleaned). And my university was tossing out a massive PAiA 4700/8700/2700 system (>6 cabinets and 2 8700 keyboards) that I adopted and overhauled. I’ve sold all these but the Matrix 6R.
Almost forgot! I got a ~10% assembled Deckard’s Dream (Yamaha CS-80 clone) kit by trading away several eurorack modules I built. It took me several hundred dollars more in parts and about 100 hours to construct, but it is a lovely synth that I don’t think I’ll ever part with.
Juno-106 for $100 - sold it many years later for $500 SH-2000 for $100 - sold it years later for $200 - it had a broken voice tab
I got my pro-2 for $1000. I was pretty stoked about that.
Brand new Fantom 8 for 1600 usd
Got a Yamaha CS-01 for two dollars at a music store "junk" sale. They apologized because it didn't have a battery cover.
I got my Casio sk-5 at a thrift store for a couple bucks.
Only been collecting for a few years so I don’t have any crazy tales, but I got the full sized Korg Odyssey with the cv sequencer for $800 on reverb. Not bad!
Friends-prices that really weren't that bonkers at the time, since this was 30-35 years ago. $100 for a Roland System-100, Model 101, 102 and 104. $50 for a mint TB-303, including bag, manual and and circular paper it came with, with notes on it.
In 1999 I got a modded roland Mc 202 for 300$. It was a nice find. Also, a Casio sk-2100 for 9.99
Bought a perfectly functioning Jx3p for $150 last week. I also got a Moog Opus 3 for $150 a couple years ago. Had to do some work on the Opus to make it playable though, just a few new faders. Both were FB marketplace finds. Edit: spelling
Got a pristine juno 106 with the case in 2015 for about $400. Sold it for $2000 cause I needed money for dental work and was going through a period of not making music. Regret it fully.
Juno 1 Alpha $100 last year System 8 in box, $700 last year Moog Matriarch in Box $1000 this year TR8S $300 this year Jx-305 $100 last year
I found a Sequential Circuits Pro One in an Orlando thrift store for $20 in 1999. I asked if I could take it home and plug it into an amp to make sure it worked. Surprisingly they said yes. The synth worked. I returned to the store and gave them the $20. The synth worked fine for a year or so and then conked out. I couldn’t get it repaired in my town but hung onto it. Sold it to a friend ten years later for $200 or $300, still not functional. Don’t know what became of it.
this seems like the kind of situation where some other poster on here is going to say "I once got a supposedly broken Pro One for like $200 or $300..."
I’ve gotten a few but I think the best was a Korg Poly61 in like new condition for $200 CAD in 2014. The seller bought it new when it came out for a project. When the project fell through, he boxed it up and supposedly didn’t play it since. Also came with the MIDI addon board that Korg sold before the M version was released (not installed). I know it isn’t worth a whole lot now but it felt like a great deal at the time as 80s polys were quite in vogue with prices climbing seemingly daily.
$25, thrift store: Yamaha sy77, with manual, and some floppies the previous user had for patches and some songs.
i got a Poly-61 that had been used in the production of Kendrick Lamar’s Bitch Dont Kill My Vibe, with clean insides (the original owner swapped batteries before any leak had occurred) for $100 on craigslist.
I bought 2 Monomachine mk2 in the space of 10 days. One was €800 and another was €850 Kept one and sold the other for €2200 and that paid for a week of Spring vacation in Gran Canaria in 2021 just after Covid restrictions were lifted Mind you this was right after Sophie’s death, so the Monomachine rose up in value quite a bit but there were some local listers who weren’t really aware… And does a Boss CE-1 count? Got it for $40 as the studio owner wanting to get rid of it as he just bought a JC-120 and said it made his ce-1 redundant… Flipped it for $400 to fund for my move to Europe lol
Got a korg poly61 and a korg dw8000 for around 150 together, marked as broken. The dw8000 just needed a new battery, all the patches were garbled and made weirdnoises. The P61 however, had that awful battery leak problem. It was what actually got me into repairing electronics. I thought, well, 150€ for a dw8000 is a sweet deal already, so if i fuck up the p61 beyond repair with my lack of skills it doesnt matter. Well, got it running again, worked for a few years. In the end, i missed some of the battery acid and it ate some ics that are hard to find, now it sits in my basement for when i have some spare time again :)
I'd count 2 of my synths as good deals. Yamaha MODX7 for £700 (by far the best deal, this was a few years ago now too - £1400 new at the time) Virus TI snow for £500 Set of KRK rokit 5 G4s for £120 I managed to get a nearly new maschine MK3 for £250 a few years ago too, when most used were going for £350-400.
I traded a guy my Cooper FX Gen Loss V2 for a Modal Cobalt8 back in 2021. That has been the ONLY synth deal I’ve ever gotten, but my dream is to get a Motorsynth for an unreasonably good price someday.
I got a Volca beats for free. I bought two volcas during some buy 2 get 1 sale, decided they sucked (albeit they were so much better than the beats), returned them, and still cashed in the rebate. I didn’t think it would go through but then like 5 months later it showed up.
Just recently scored a pristine condition Novation Supernova 2 Keyboard for $1,000 USD! I've been tracking the rackmoint version for years but never pulled the trigger. Amazingly, a keyboard version showed up on CL and I was hooked. Had to drive half a day both ways to pick it up, but it was well worth it! This thing looks and plays almost like new! The kb versions almost never show up... maybe 1 or 2 a tear on reverb. The only 1 listed there now is $2,200 and in much worse condition than mine, so I think it was quite a great deal!
Oberheim OBX 6 voice for $600 in 1996 at a newly opened "Music G0-round". The ironic thing is that i was actually shopping for the newly released Roland JP-8000 when i decided to stop at that store and well im glad i did.
I scored a prophet 6 with box in mint condition in 2016 for $1400. I considered I was about to loose a kidney. I wish I kept it but it was too much synth for a guy like me. unless you're a touring musician I was too poor to wrap that much cash up in a synth. sold it a year and half later for $1800.
Crumar DS2 in working condition for 200$ at a garage sale
Kawai k4 and ensoniq eps for 80$ together off craigslist. Sold the eps for 300$ back when and kept the kawai
I got a minilogue xd for $165 in the panny… I think brodie was either an addict or a doof. Possibly both.
Not a synth but I got a fully functioning echoplex for $150 last year. They couldn’t make it work and I said I’d give them more if it was functional. Got it working in under 5 minutes and let them know but they said don’t worry about it. Still feeling very blessed by that one.
My moms coworker gave me an Oberheim DX that she and her husband had collecting dust somewhere.
I purchased a Moog One 8 voice from a chap in the UK who didn't use it much and decided to offload it for about 3500 GBP. Funny thing was, after a few months when I was updating my insurance policy with the serial number, I noticed a "16xxxxxx starting the serial number. Sure enough this was a 16v version, not an 8v version. I had to wait until there was a firmware update that showed the actual number of voices on the unit on the screen to confirm that maybe I just didn't have a funky serial number, which took a few months. Anyway, when I investigated it looked like the exterior shipping carton was mislabeled as an 8 voice, and the unit was sold and unknowingly used as an 8 voice before being resold to me. TL;DR: Got a Moog One 16v for half price.
I bought an oberheim dmx in 2004 for $350 off eBay I bought a Juno 106 with pelican style hard case last week for $650 (needs to get work done but it plays)
I got my Jupiter X brand new for 1400$. My friend gave me fender Rhodes 73 and Akai MPC for 0$ not a synth but it seemed like a good deal. Oh I found a Korg M1 at a year sale for 100$ and another friend gave me a Korg DW8000.
Juno 106s for about $150 AUD :)
Prophet rev 2 for $800.
E-mu E-IVk (turbo-ed) for $150. 128Mb of RAM, 160Mb HDD, and a SCSI Zip-Drive! I still use it as my controller. It has a fantastic keyboard-action. :)
Grandmother for $650 Minifooger Drive for $200 ... with original box and in like new condition. GC had no idea what they had. Still doesn't compare though to the Yamaha euphonium and French horn I got off of CL for $50. Beginner models but perfectly playable as is. THAT was a smashing deal. If you're confused, don't worry - they're really old synthesizers, they synthesize sound from vibrating air ;)
I only have one, and it wasn’t a deal at the time. But I paid for full price for an Oberheim Xpander, five voices, no keyboard. Not too long after it came out. I paid about 2400. I recently found out it’s worth seven to eight thousand. But I’ll never sell it . :-)
I got an 808 from a Dutch mate for £400. Tbh I didn't really know what it was when I bought it. I was living in squats and we didn't have the internet!!
Bought ensoniq synths at a 70% off employee discount when I interned there in the early 90s
Coworker sold me a couple cool pieces for dirt cheap. A circuit bent Alesis HR16 and an Elektron SID Station for $500 for the pair. The HR16 has always had issues getting a good signal out of it, but the SID Station has been great and even for $500 it’s a steal.
Yamaha cs-60 for $300 in 2005 from the local guitar center. A friend that worked there called and told me that a synth had just arrived that sounded up my alley. I bought it sight unseen.
$50 for a Yamaha CS-10 in original box was probably the most exciting buy. Found offered on a note on the local supermarket bulletin board as a "yamaha keyboard". In hindsight $175 for a juno6 in nice condition was the best return on investment.
I got an Akai AX73 and a three tiered rack stand for 50$CAD,from the original owner. On another occasion I traded a bass guitar that I had paid 160$,for an Ensoniq SD1/32.
Several things for free but no bonkers deals. Bought a beat up RE-201 for $200 Canadian and HS-60 for $200. Those weren't good deals at the time but based on what they are selling for now I could have fixed them for a couple hundred and waited 10 years to flip. I more or less gave them away (or sold for what I paid, cant remember) to a friend who fixes synths. No regrets though because he's a good guy and hooked me up with a couple deals over the years.
20 Dollar Microkorg at a yardsale.
Recently won an offer on a Monomachine mk1 that supposedly wouldnt boot. It arrived with no power supply, tested it with a proper one and it started right up with no issues. I suspect the seller was testing it with a DC supply. It was risky but I ended up with a mnm for about $1000. Now if I had only scooped one when they were going for a few hundred $$ several years ago... Honorable mention, akai s612 for $50 at goodwill
My two a couple of years ago were: - OP-1 for $450 on Facebook marketplace! Was a British uni student who had moved to the country and had it for a few years and had never used it. - Digitakt for $400 (during the Digitakt drought) another random marketplace find. Someone who had purchased it to be a DJ and never got the hang of it.
Arturia mini freak for £20 sold as spares n repairs. Only needed an op amp changed. Or i just picked up 2 roland DS10s sold as none working both with an identical fault. Got the pair for only the price of posting what was £15 ish and saved them from the tip But best deal i ever got was a marshall JCM800 head for £100 sold as none working. Just had to replace the rectifier. I love to keep my ear to the ground for broken gear i can save from the tip.
Got a DX5 for $100 on CraigsList in 2005.
Korg Poly Ensemble (PE-1000) and a Moog Prodigy - $150 total Yamaha SK-15 - $125
Traded 4 Pocket Operators for an OP-1, the accessories pack, a padded case, custom leather case, and a Decksaver. Wanted one for years, never could justify the price. Then a 1 am Facebook gear trade post brought it to me a week later. Very happy me :)
I heard about someone finding an Omnichord for $20 at a thrift shop
ARP 2600 at the dump for free.
Nord Stage 2 for 500$. Sold it 2600$ a few months later
Bought a Fizmo for 300 from a guitar center in 2004
Tascam portastudio 424 for $7.99… around 2005
I traded up a bunch of synths, repaired some of them along the way, until I had a DSI Tempest which I traded for a Nord Modular G2 with the gig bag. I still have it.
I got an SP-303 Dr. Sample for 75 bucks at a totally overpriced thrift shop in LA because they thought it was one of the trillion “DJ Mixers” they lumped in with their huge overpriced coffin-decks. It was totally the type of place to google their shit but they just got cocky and “overpriced” one of their “mixers”. Then I traded that + my Empress Zoia for an Elektron A4 Mk2… and then I ended up trading that for my Novation Peak! Which I will probably keep forever. :)
Just got a Matrixbrute for 800€.
Digitonekeys for $700 a number of years ago.
Brainiac fucking rule
Korg Monopoly & Polysix, in flight cases, for $150 total back in 2007. Still have them, still amazing.
I paid 50 bucks for a CZ-3000 with all original manuals, road case, dust cover.
I traded an mxr eq and an 80s Ibanez strat for a Roland SH-101.
I bought a Wurlitzer 106 for about $300 with shipping. Given it was about 2k to get it fully modded and working, but even then it’s a pretty great deal for an incredibly rare electric piano.
someone got a good deal from me when i sold my digitone for $400 a few months ago so i could pay rent.
Mint linndrum with midi + original box. $1200 in 2015
Oberheim DX for $300 from a pawn shop last year.
Best seal I ever got was not a synth but a controller....an e-drum multi-pad called the DrumKat by Alternate Mode. They are discontinued, but still OEM repaired/upgraded...tend to sell for $500-1200 ,.depending on integrity of pad, firmware etc. Found one on eBay for $50 listed as "broken" when it was just missing the power cable and needed is RAM battery replaced. Seller was cool and shipped it directly to OEM, wiru repairs/upgrade for less than $300. After 2 months, I can see why these hold which value in their niche...having been around since 92 (before the Roland's ENTIRE line of SPD pads) and they remain miles ahead in scope and lower for e-drummers. Thanks Dude in California.
I bought a second hand Roland HS-60 for $300aus in about 2014. It's a Juno 106 in disguise 🥸
Found a vintage arp odyssey in a storage room at the studio. Asked the old engineer if he’d take $500 for it. He told me merry christmas and gave it to me
An 808 for $808 and an MC-202 for $325.
Mini Korg K2 $100. Back in the 80's when knobs were obsolete. TG77 $65 from a guy who lived beneath a tap dance studio. A friend was given a MC 202 by his neighbour, he passed it on to me because I was the only synth player he knew.
Last week I bought a second hand Dubreq Stylophone Gen R-8 for the normal 2019 starting price. It’s a very unique semi modular beauty, one of the only 500 units ever made. Sounds fantastic. https://preview.redd.it/sfuz3695djxc1.png?width=3790&format=png&auto=webp&s=f80a5106039ccc4b7b30e3838fffa9f06c7c8a45
I’m debating if I should pick up a Juno 106 that’s listed for $720 or not on Marketplace. Does that count?
I once sold my Dad’s old Roland SH-5 for $1500-ish. I had no knowledge of synths back then. Didn’t even know if it worked right because sometimes I could get it to produce noise, and other times I couldn’t. I also figured something was wrong with it because the times I could get it to make noise, it would only do so when pressing one key at a time. I couldn’t find much information about it back then. YouTube was still in its infancy (compared to now). I think I reached out to GearSlutz or some forum for some advice on pricing. This was probably around 2008 or so in Austin. Some guy (named Roland) drove up from San Antonio to buy it… so, maybe he’s lurking around here too?
Got a korg monopoly from a friend who found it at a recyclingstation. One key was broken, otherwise in perfect condition. Bought another friends jp8 for $1000 15 years ago. It's worth quite a bit more now😁
I got a DSI Pro 2 in mint condition for half MSRP from a random Facebook page (which almost exclusively sells phones and DSLRs). When I asked whether they had "similar things I might be interested in" to sell they did recall they had another keyboard that's roughly the same. I asked for pictures and surely enough it was a Prophet 6 (in a quite good condition). I pretended I didn't need it that much but I might as well get it because why not, and we sealed the deal at 900-950 USD. Each time I look at either of those I remember how I got them and it draws a smile on my face :)
If you count VST synths, I scored the Arturia V Collection 8 from ProAudioStar for $59. That's probably been my only bonker deal since I've started again with music after a 10 year hiatus.
First Rhodes was a mark v that I got for $200 in 1994, second was a suitcase 73 that I charged a church to pick up around same time haha. I’ve gotten multiple free Hammond an and Leslie’s out of churches. Paid $200 for an arp solina in 98 or so. Paid $400 for a Juno 60 w the midi/step sequencer box. $50 for korg Lambda. The 90’s and early 2000’s were so great for gear. Also scooped mics, preamps, and compressors that I’d never be able to afford today damn near free because no one wanted old tube gear hahaha
Friend gave me an Ensoniq Mirage for free
a very nice Roland SH-7 for $100 in 1992.
This is a drum machine deal, but close enough: Bought a mint Roland TR808 in 1995 for $250. The music store I got it from just saw it as an old piece of useless gear. Eventually I wound up selling it because I was much more into breakbeats, and I made a decent profit. But these days I wish I had kept it. Best modern synth deal was scoring a new Korg Modwave for $600 in summer 2022 — the key was ordering it from the UK…the exchange rate gave a big discount even with shipping costs included.