Shoot me a DM and we can chat at your leisure 
2 Likes
I sold a Digitone and bought a Syntakt on Reverb last month.
What was very suprising to me were the insane high prices for both devices. I even saw second hand Syntakts costing more than new ones.
Even now I see a used Syntakt for €899,- excl. shipping in Germany while I can buy a new one at Bax for €929,- incl. shipping.
As I don’t want to buy new gear, It took me a while to find one for < €800,-
I listed the Digitone for 60% of the original price, still very fair after three years. With this price, I sold it within a few days.
I see a same trend with insane prices on other platforms as well. Not only with gear, also with high-end bicycles for example.
I personally don’t think that the second hand market is saturated (because then prices should drop), but the market is full of people who are not pricing their gear realisticly.
They are probably speculating that wanted gear will be out of stock sometimes, targetting helpless GAS affected Elektronauts victims who want their boxes ASAP, whatever the costs…
3 Likes
There seems to be a lot of that going on on eBay. Lots of gear popping up at around the RRP being sold as new by private sellers which would make the item used, whether it’s left it’s packaging or not. I think there are some sellers who buy two or three pieces when they’re in stock somewhere then try and make a profit on those items via eBay. Bit to list the item as new is just plain wrong imo
2 Likes
Last thing I bought was full retail, got a 3 yr warranty thrown in, was about £70-£80 more than used are going for.
Lots of people trying to flip things, it’s kinda annoying. I blame reverb.
AND lots of people trying to scam with music gear, they’ll be located rural and only ship without buyers protection because the’ve been scammed before. Recently mostly with mutable instruments modules mind you.
Its seems there is some kind of fomo as everyone wants to have the next 808 in hands but if you think about it in 30 years time your’e sure as hell be able to save up for a 6000.- 808 regardless of income (not really but you know what I mean)
Also, maybe a big mass of people have been acquiring gear for the last 5-10 years (like me) and simply had enough of all the stuff lying around.
I see this too, gear as investment money? I mean it will hardly give you a couple of 100 bucks. Look at the whole ps5 things. Didn’t they come down eventually.
IT’s not healthy economics to buy things in order to sell them later. look at the houses.
1 Like
between indiscriminate remarketing and inflation of micro-economies these niche markets are on path to cannibalizing themselves. I rarely keep items on watch but sometimes as I do, I will see 2 sellers aggressively lowering their prices by a dollar or two at a time against each other. Sometimes neither item sells.
Some gear I’ve been interested in for a while has taken a nasty turn where it all of a sudden became 4x the prior average price per unit and now they are all sitting and not budging because someone was able to inflate that particular piece of gear for a short period of time and now even people who bought it at that price want to get the amount back out of it. It’s like you said about the housing market, it’s a false economy and what it says on paper is not always the same as what you have in hand.
3 Likes
Someone said it further up the thread but they are correct in that the best bellwether of the market value of something is the price it’s been selling for, especially on auction sites such as eBay. I think a lot of folks either don’t have experience of buying and selling on the second hand market or they’ve got a false belief in the the importance/desirability and heave resale value of what they’re selling and therefore pitch their prices too high.
I don’t see the second hand market for gear as any different to the second hand market of anything else, whether that be cars, watches, etc etc. The majority of stuff depreciates, some stuff faster and deeper than other stuff. The odd exception will hold its value (usually because of some rarity factor) and may even appreciate where as vintage/collectible will usually go up then plateau.
1 Like
yeah regarding the mutable modules, machinedrums, Avalon baselines and all the other synths I failed to mention. Prices will come down eventually, I think. Maybe they won’t. I’m sure as hell not paying 1000,- for a module that doesnt even makes sounds without, power, case, patch cables, utility modules etc.
I must admit it’s easy to get carried away with the FOMO as we all had that one synth that has gone up in price over the last few years. For me it was a Roland alpha uno 2, but if I would imagine the hassle logging that thing around all those years it’s just not worth the couple of 100 bucks. When I think of scalpers or “music equipment investors” I think of all the hassle it should be to have those boxer laying around not being used for a minor 100-1000 euros gained over several years. I mean, most of us can’t even live a month of that kind of cash. Is it worth the energy you invest, checking prices, contacting buyings/sellers, shipping, storing etc You should take the entire process in account, not just the prices on reverb.
3 Likes
Exactly, everything plateau’s at one point and you have to ask yourself will a 300-500 dollar or even a 1500 dollar synth reach the 10 thousands? and is it then worth all those years of keeping it safe and clean.
1 Like
Honest answer, maybe but those instruments will be the sort of stuff that’s expensive and rare in the wild such at the Re released Oberheim TVS, Waldorf Wave etc etc, I can’t imagine a time when something like a minilogue etc will achieve the second hand value of something like a Juno or PolySix, even in 20 years time. I don’t even think the new P5’s in years to come will command the price that a vintage P5 does today. It’s like anything collectible, suss out what’s rare now and invest in that rather than hoping some mass produced bit of kit will take an extraordinary upturn in second hand value somewhere down the road.
That said if I go back to the car analogy the real money is being commanded by ‘survivor’ cars these days. The almost ubiquitous base spec models that no one bothered to cherish because everyone wanted the GTi model for example. So maybe some of the lesser spec’ed instruments of today that get overlooked for their better endowed siblings might be the ones to go for, especially if they don’t currently sell in as large a number as their counterparts? It ensures a certain rarity value further down the road.
1 Like
Exactly, I agree. Those items (like the 909/808) are rare because they were discarded when new more shiny toys came around. Yeah for sure. back int he day those things where’s pushed out by the thousands. I can emagine boutique synths like the Avalon, perfourmer, Deckard dream and such would steadily increase in value if the repairability is acceptable and don’t break down en mass
its a very interesting topic @mattleaf, I wasn’t aware this was such a wide “problem”
3 Likes
I don’t mean to make light of anyones investments with this following statement because some people are staunch believers, still, in the value of cryptocurrency - but I believe the irony of nft’s is that if you’re going to believe in the forward value of something intangible such as synth forecasting, it might as well be easy to carry with you and ironically I think that is the one strong selling point of NFT is that it is easy to carry because it does not really exist…
1 Like
i only noticed in my case listing a DN, in multiple spots, at a pretty reasonable price (brand new device - selling about 65% of retail) and literally not a single offer, message or enquiry. Usually, Elektron gear sells pretty much instantly. Still, having a DN is certainly not a bad thing and I don’t mind if it stays in my possession.
To be honest. All those thinking, again, keeps us all away from making music. I bought an Octatrack AE when it came out for a good price because I sold my old one a while ago then.
And I had it a couple of times that I did not even wanted to touch it because I thought maybe sometime I can sell it when it stays in good condition.
I could punch myself for such crap. I decided I will now even rip this motherfucking AE Edition to Pieces if this happens while using it. Whats the point.
I also have a few Eurorack Modules I was. thinking I could sell. But like you discussed here. Finding a price is not easy. I almost did not used them at all so I don´t want to go 60% from retail price.
For now I decided to keep them. It´s getting harder to buy stuff, so I really apriciate what I already got and that is a lot.
1 Like
Poor local person got scammed for ~$2k by someone who offered a Nord Stage at stupid price and claimed that because Venmo was bought by Paypal, that Venmo had “buyer protection”.
Covid provided a vague smokescreen of legitimacy for not meeting up to demo and only shipping but that person got screwwwwed.
I got a bad smell early on but kept replying so I could either get them to agree to meet up first or get more of their claims so I could know what they and their peers were trying to apply to future items I might be more likely to trust.
Yeah, modern scarcity is artificial, our limitations are around prioritization of resources alongside the nonstop encouraging of wealth disparity in the majority of communication platforms.
I mean have you looked at the resale price of Avalons? Even when this last batch gets distributed to resellers it’s not going to go down too much.
1 Like
has anyone seen these very niche synths from what I assume is a scam site on google ads? the scammers have great taste at least!
we aren’t the only ones noticing the niche market… and it appears some are now professionally trying to exploit it. I read a post that this company is a scam but hopes and dreams are easy to sell… I guess. even to (especially to?) a niche market.
1 Like
when ive sold my gear i try to be a reasonable human being that operates outside of pure supply and demand principles (which are probably based on false value anyways). lowball every other price by a hundred bucks and you have a sale.
managed to snag a like new condition M8 locally for under original retail value a few months ago, i like to think of it as some sales karma coming back to me.
3 Likes