The synth market has certainly had it’s highs and lows over the last 7 years, and I think it’s time to reveal and discuss where we are, how we got here, and where it’s headed, and what other markets we can pay attention to as a comparison.
First, I want to reveal to you what I consider a vintage synth: A Utilitarian Collectible
What’s a utilitarian collectible? Well, according to google AI:
A utilitarian collectible is an item originally designed purely for a functional purpose, but subsequently prized and collected for its aesthetic appeal, historical significance, or craftsmanship. By bridging the gap between workhorse and art, these items—like mid-century folding pocket knives or vintage tools—offer a uniquely functional approach to collecting.
Consider a baseball card that sells for $50,000. It is a piece of cardboard that does absolutely nothing besides be a piece of cardboard, but it’s still rare and represents some liquidity.
A vintage synth is utilitarian in the sense that you can (and should) use it to make music.
A vintage synth is a collectible in the sense that there will never be more of them, which can often lend itself to liquidity and therefor value.
It just so happens they also ended up being timeless, classic instruments that are highly relevant to todays music creation. This is a very unique position as a collectible.
Why this started
For reference, I opened the doors to Rosen Sound in 2014. I only have a 12+ year gaze into this market as I was indeed lucky enough to start Rosen Sound just as old synths were entering a renaissance, which I didn’t care much about seeing as I was servicing all types of equipment but not yet selling equipment.
As I saw it at the time (2014), keyboard players were suddenly tired of the latest virtual analog hardware, and computers weren’t yet ubiquitously powerful enough to run 100 instances of the latest synth plugin, and the sound people really wanted from their favorite records were done on old synths.. and old synths were kinda cheap. Additionally, old synths already had a reputation in the electronic music scene as artists like daft punk and chemical brothers were using old synths heavily in their music. Everyone else was sort of “late” to that party.
The problem is, none of them really worked, and people were buying and trading synths of various quality just to get one that worked (albeit temporarily). From my observation, they were cheap enough that people could buy another to cannibalize, and repair people weren’t as common as they are now, and the ones that were able to fix this stuff were super backed up or too crazy to deal with. This was a major advantage for me when I started Rosen Sound, as most of my new clientele was people who were just unable to work with whomever came before me.
This was also the early days of Instagram and social media “influencing”. As soon as an artist revealed they used X on their record, suddenly X was the next thing everyone needed. This created a frenzy of people looking for the same thing, and now “serviced” and working examples were preferred and therefor more expensive than other options. This is the chain that made a Jupiter 8 go from $1000 in 2010 to $8500 in 2014 (the first JP8 I ever sold was $8000 in 2015. We sold the same one for $16,500 2 years later.)
At this juncture, most synths began to increase in price and desirability. But, people at this point were buying them for the unique sound. This has sort of changed.
Then, the Pandemic
The Pandemic made the synth market go into maximum overdrive. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why, but I guess the threat of a deadly disease coupled with the closure of many industries prompted people not to just buy old synths (among other classes of collectibles), but also spend their money on the dumbest shit possible. What do I mean by that? I saw people spend crazy money not just on synths at speculative prices, but even the junk listings of old power supplies, chassis’, bags of old capacitors, you name it. More so, we saw poor condition or as-is synths sell for the same price as restored examples. This caused synths to enter insane price territory. Luckily, I only know one unfortunate soul who spent $80k on a CS-80, but I am sure there’s others.
The Pandemic craze lasted until exactly October 2023, where we (and many, many colleagues) all suddenly felt a sudden halt in sales of anything.
Post 2023 Correction – & Other Thoughts
in early 2024, synths began their journey from speculative good-sounding fun-to-own pandemic-hyped musical instrument into the utilitarian collectible.
Now, we have reissues.
Reissues proved to the market that even the manufactures know their old designs are relevant to todays music making
Now we have Behringer
Behringer proved to the market that music makers was to feel like they own X Y & Z
Now we have software
Coders made plugins that look (not sound) like every synth you could want, and you’ll never know the difference because you probably can’t A/B them
Now we have co-branded software
Let’s call this for what it is. It’s brands wanting to protect their IP from Behringer and capitalize on their name recognition.
So why buy a vintage synth? You can get a brand new one from either the manufacture that now “exists again”, or from behringer! Or, you can get the software.. did you hear Sequential put their name on it?
But people still want the real thing… because anyone with a credit card and affirm can have the above.
An interesting thing to notice is how the conversation changed from the 2010’s of “old synths sound better” to the post pandemic “it’s about how you create with them”. I think both are true, to be honest.
Anyway, 2024 exposed the junk and crowned the kings. Since then, it’s been painfully obvious which synths would continue to be valuable and which ones will likely sit at the same relative price for time to come. Some synths took big dives and are actually increasing in value again (Jupiter 8 and Prophet 5 Rev 3.3 come to mind). Finally, an empty SEM chassis for $1,000 on reverb will sit for 6 months, price drop after price drop, instead of being bought in 3 seconds by some dude who’s going to post a “got em” story on his instragram story and likely just let it rot in his garage.
We’ve not seen any meaningful increase in prices for synths like the AX-80, JX-10, JX3P, OB-SX, Jupiter-6, Prophet 600, Polysix, MG-1, Poly-61, Prodigy, etc. and it’s NOT for no reason.
These machines have one thing in common with more desirable synths. They’re vintage.
One big mistake many collectors have made is to conflate vintage with desirable.
At this point, synths needs to essentially pass a filter to be considered a viable market asset:
1. Was it important?
2. Did it influence what came after it?
3. Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it?
4. Is it emotionally legible?
Let’s pass some synths through this filter.
JP8:
Was it important? Yes. Used on some of the biggest records ever.
Did it influence what came after it? Absolutely it did.
Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it? Yes. The JP6 sounds nothing like it
Is it emotionally legible? Yes. People for generators to come will look at a JP8 and feel its aura and immediately be able to wrangle its knob per function.
Minimoog:
Was it important? Lol.
Did it influence what came after it? Lol.
Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it? Arguable either way, but compared to other monos of the era, the Mini was a feature rich option.
Is it emotionally legible? Yes. The aesthetic design and timeless sound will be felt by generations.
Korg Polysix:
Was it important? Not really. It was just Korgs version of the Juno.
Did it influence what came after it? There is no direct or relevant descendant of this synthesizer
Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it? Nothing of note came after it.
Is it emotionally legible? No. It is only relevant to those who are nostalgic of a single instance of use.
Jupiter 6:
Was it important? Yes and no. Yes because of Midi, no because it didn’t get used on much.
Did it influence what came after it? No.
Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it? Nothing really came after it.
Is it emotionally legible? Sort of. People will look at it and think of the JP8 they wish they had instead, even if us who know about them know that’s not the point.
Oberheim Four Voice:
Was it important? Yes.
Did it influence what came after it? Absolutely it did.
Is there something unique that was lost with what came after it? YES
Is it emotionally legible? Yes. People will look at the white beast and know it means business.
Moving on to the Market post 2024
The market nowadays feels very much like people are more educated in what they want and what they’re going to buy. This is a good thing. Now, instead of buying the most accessible JP8 you can find on reverb, people are now caring about revision, condition, serial number, and service history.
This has also caused the private-party sales on the open market to be all but declared dead. We have noticed synths sit for months on end, even at half decent prices. Most of the synths being sold on the open market need to be priced into the “risk free” tier for casual buyers to consider them, and even less for dealers to consider buying. Just before writing this article, I purchased a memorymoog on Reverb for $6,000. This is the “risk free” tier for me as a dealer, and was about $1-2000 higher than what someone who just wants a memorymoog at all costs would pay.
This has made the way we buy synths change as well. Before 2023, we’d buy any minimoog, any JP8, any OB-X, in any condition at any reasonable/profitable price. Now, we value originality, honest condition, and revision much more than we used to. Even though we know they will sound and perform the same as any other at the end of the day (though us, at least).
We also now need to factor in the cost of the money. It used to be, and Im not joking, that someone could sell us a CS-80 at 7am, and it would be sold by 7:10am (this had happened to more than a few times between 2020-2022). Now, we must prepare for a CS-80 to sit for weeks or months before a new owner is found.
In 2025, we saw sales increase meaningfully. However, buyers are now much more careful about revision and condition. The novel use of AI into daily decision making has exacerbated this as Chat will tell you to “make sure you get a Synthi that was made in england”. This is still overall, a good thing.
In 2026, we have seen yet another increase in sales. The overall consensus is prices have landed to their normal, and we would have to agree. Selling a JP8 for 35k never felt right. Selling it for 18 didn’t either. 20-28 *depending on the revision, condition, and originality* is now the reality, and theres a buyer for every configuration.
So, What Should You Do?
Easy. Buy what you like and what you can afford. If you buy a desirable model, you can expect growth in value from it in the somewhat near future and beyond. If you can afford to, hold onto your old synths for as long as you can. Consign with us or your trusted dealer if you want the best value, as the open market is currently dead.
The Top Dogs Never Really Faltered And Will Continue to Rise
One interesting thing is to note that besides frequency and speed of sale, synths like the Oberheim Four/Eight Voice, Yamaha CS-80, and the top modular synths never saw much of a slip in the post pandemic correction. CS-80’s were never selling for 70k+ and no one will spend even close to that on the open market, but besides that, you are more than safe in a System 700, (vintage) Moog Modular, ARP 2500, or EMU modulars value wise.
These models do not seem to have anything stopping them from continuing to gain value. They all look impressive, sound impressive, are historically important, made in low numbers, and all are revered for their user interface.
Other Markets to Pay Attention To
With my realization that synths have entered a collectibles status alongside their usefulness in music making, I’ve been paying close attention to the following markets:
Vintage Guitars: This market has shows similar price and frequency-of-sale trades as vintage synths
Vintage Wristwatches: The price disparity between a honest and original Rolex 5513 and a service-bezel variant is likely the type of price disparity we will see in same-model synthesizers one day. Vintage guitars experience this already. “Haute horology” like A. Lange & Sohne, Ademars Piguet, Patek Phillipe, FP Journe, can be easily compared to the price, desirability, exclusivity, and “value” of a moog modular vs say, the latest monster brand new synth coming out of Europe nowadays. You can ask yourself “who is buying this” and its the same type of buyers on either side of the equation.
Vintage Computers: Perfect example of why vintage shouldn’t be conflated with value or desirability. People will pay thousands for an Apple II due to it’s significance but won’t be spending a penny on your moms old dell you ruined with you porn habits.
