Curious to know if anyone has kept hold of unopened MIP gear?
I was thinking about what gear could be worth keeping in that state as a fun investment.
Imagine you had an unopened 808 or 303 at this point, what they’d be worth(?)…
Some of the Elektron gear springs to mind, the E25’s, the anniversary OT… imagine those being boxed and untouched could be worth a lot down the line.
What else? What’s about now?
My missus got me a TE EP-133 KO at Xmas and I’ve kept it boxed and sealed… 7 months in I’m now thinking should I keep it like this.
There’s a huge amount of Picassos, Manet and Rothko being held in containers in Swistzerland by people waiting for the value to raise. Same with empty buildings. So why not synths…?
The only unopened boxes I have are Legos because I’m waiting for my son to be a bit older
Synth world? My crystal ball says best bet would be things that are already beloved, though: Reface CP, Sub37, Prophet 6, 37 key Access Viruses… I don’t think it would even need to be the big expensive rarer stuff either. I do think The River, Quantum MK2, Groove, or Moog One 16 Voice would be amazing in 20 years time. A good bet is anything that’s a rare colorway. Stellar edition Minifreak or the new aluminum Hydrasynth. Maybe the e25 Elektrons?
I think you may be missing the point of both “fun” and “investments.”
Investments should be boring. Turning a fun thing into an investment drains the fun: you can’t touch it, you shouldn’t play with it. Turning an investment into fun ruins trading discipline. There is a reason the NFT scammers try to make their Ponzi schemes fun: to distract from the fact that they are just super sketchy lottery tickets.
I don’t think my MD and MNM are worth what they were in 2020, but that doesn’t matter to me. They are just as much fun as they were in 2020 or 2016. I wasn’t going to sell them to pay rent to begin with, so why should I care what they are worth today?
I have a Roland aira TB-3 I bought for $400 AUD ~$300ish USD from a store online after it was discontinued on closeout sale.
It would easily sell for double now, I was thinking I might sell it, not sure it will go up much more? Bad Gear really helped the sale price there… & I’m not sure the ACID will be as strong in years to come…
As an e25 owner, I have a maybe-controversial opinion: e25s won’t be worth much more than a base model in 20 years. They made enough of each, and the feature set is quite the same. I also wonder how well the stainless finish will be looking down the road, especially if it’s been handled and played. One final note, the boxes aren’t “sealed” in any appreciable way, so there wouldn’t be an easy way to verify that it’s truly never been opened or played. The same is true of a fair bit of modern gear, come to think of it.
If there’s any modern bit of elektron gear (currently sold) that’s gonna go up in value down the road, my money is on Model:Cycles.
As far as the synth world at large, unless there are any major hardware bugs or issues that haven’t come out yet, I firmly believe Arturia PB12 will be worth 2x or 3x once it gets discontinued. That board is astounding
As a child of antique toy collectors/dealers, one thing people often forget is all the rent or mortgage paid to store said items for that long. Rarely does it get paid back.
