Pro One sales advice

[System8]

Hi all, great site
I have a Sequential Circuits Pro One that I've owned since 1982. It's in good condition as far as I can tell but it's not boxed. I've seen a few advertised for sale on Ebay for around £2000 and was wondering is that a fair price to ask.
Thanks.

[synthchaser]

Can't rely on the ebay active listings, there are a bunch of sellers on crack who have no idea what their gear is worth. I don't know if they're worth more in Europe, but here in the US I typically see working ones sell around a median of $1500.

[System8]

Thanks for the reply synthchaser.
I guess it's a case of what the seller wants for it isn't always what people are willing to pay. I haven't played for a few years but have just sorted myself out with a coupe of new systems. Heart says keep the Pro One but head says sell it to someone who'll get some use of of it.

[meatballfulton]

In my experience of selling used gear once you set a price you soon find out that either noone is willing to pay that much (you asked too much) or you get 1000 people begging for it (you asked too little)

I tend to price below what I see on eBay and Reverb if I want to get it sold quickly. If you want top dollar you need to be more patient.

[System8]

Thanks meatballfulton,
I'm in no hurry to sell thankfully so maybe I'll just keep an eye on the market over here and see what happens.

[Solderman]

I have no advice for a selling price(I sold mine in 2008 for $400 to a happy Canadian musician) but wanted to advise you on shipping. This synth was rather cheaply made and if it is not packed well, it can suffer grave damage during the trip. My own had its circuit board sink out of the phono jack holes going to Canada and nearly bent on the other side. If you have an early serial number pro~one, there's a chance the power supply is attached to the board and this can actually break off! Not to mention the top side of the case frame is rather thin, flimsy plastic, while being hollow inside, means it needs very good protection and support.

I really suggest you keep it though, unless you no longer like the Curtis chip sound. No other vintage monosynth has that same kind of rubbery punch in the bass imo and I'm sure you are aware of how versatile it is. Really great oscillator crossmod too that tracks pretty well across the keyboard. I let mine go because I bought a Moog Voyager, but I don't have it anymore either. A standout bass machine is something I'm lacking now, so know the strengths of any gear you are considering selling, even if you haven't used it in a while.

[System8]

Thanks for the advice on shipping Solderman.
I'm still in two minds about selling, maybe I should hang on to it for now

[knolan]

With so much new analogue gear out, the result is you're going to have to wait a lot longer before you sell. 5 years ago vintage analogue gear was selling to two markets - 1) those wanting / needing a substantive analogue synth 2) those who are chasing down classics.

The first market has gone, and second market is still there but it's smaller, so you'll have to wait longer (perhaps a years or more?). Selling vintage classic synths in good nick is now a long term game; but it doesn't affect the classic status of your synthesizer - as in - the Pro1 is regarded as one of the best monophonic synths ever made.

There is no right or wrong price - but I'd put it at the higher end because the person going to buy it is definitely after it, values it and is willing to pay. But as said - that person may not be in the market right now, or it might be someone whose Pro1 breaks down in 6 months and they must have a replacement.

Your $2000 sounds about right to me - in the grander scheme this is a fair price for a rare but classic instrument, and again, anyone who argues that the price of vintage gear is too high is just annoyed they can't afford it without a little pain in the wallet - there is no "right or wrong" in this - it's a market! Set the price as you see fit and if it's right for your instrument, and is not too outlandish, will likely sell in that ball-park; but prepared to wait. Remember also ebay take a 10% cut!

I'd only start dropping price if you're keen to sell quickly. For example, dropping to $1500 is going to entice a lot more people who may be debating buying a Pro2 or Sub37 and realise that there's a Pro1 going for the same price. Go too low of course the people automatically think it's not as good as "the true classic version of that instrument".

Good luck!

[celebutante]

Sometime around 1992, I bought a Pro-One for $30 (seriously!). It was perfect except for a broken fuse holder. Factoring for inflation, I'll give you $55 for yours.

(I ended up selling it to a friend for $200 who wouldn't leave me alone. On a positive, you could say I made a 600% profit!)

[Solderman]

it doesn't affect the classic status of your synthesizer - as in - the Pro1 is regarded as one of the best monophonic synths ever made.

I wouldn't rely on reputation or status(-ugh-) alone, except for the perpetually in demand ones, like the Juno 60.
I mentioned it before, but the biggest problem with the Pro~One is how cheaply made it is. The times of asking $2000 for what is 60% manufactured with dodgy materials, a mostly on-chip signal path and if not the j-wire model, has one of the worst keyboards on any monosynth, are only appropriate when they are heavily in demand for whatever (often uninformed) reason.
From my own experience, I would not argue that the Pro~One is superbly versatile and has a nice sound for certain things. Best ever made? I'm very dubious. Octave Cat? Roland SH-2? Korg Monopoly? MFB Dominion? All better synths that are higher quality in manufacture, going for this same $2,000 price range or less. It's a single-voice prophet 5 rev 3, sans digital interfacing of the knobs, with some very basic microprocessor features and a envelope trigger at the audio input. Would you pay $10,000 for 5 of those voices under digital patch control? Of course not. I seem to remember it being touted in the mid 90's as a cheap and more plentiful substitute when you couldn't afford or couldn't find a Minimoog or Odyssey. Those days are long gone, but the whole reason for choosing analogue is typically different now.

No harm in throwing it out there for that price if you decide to sell, but I agree it's not likely to fetch that grand sum like it was about 3-4 years ago.

[Fatbenelton]

Bought and sold a few in the UK...bought one for £300 in 2002 and sold one last year for around £1250 I think. They do seem to be creeping up in value but I think £1500-1600 is a decent start and be happy with anything aver £1400. If listing on ebay chance your arm at £1800 but invite offers....

[knolan]

@Solderman - good points. I should have said the Pro1 is one on the most reputable monosynths from that era because of its solid sound, excellent features and quite widespread use. I have no knowledge of the build quality and bow to your knowledge on this.

[gs]

@Solderman - good points. I should have said the Pro1 is one on the most reputable monosynths from that era because of its solid sound, excellent features and quite widespread use. I have no knowledge of the build quality and bow to your knowledge on this.

And therein lies the rub: "Reputation". A nice thing for discussion, not such a nice thing for recommendation.

I owned one for a few years in the 00's. Bought for about $500, it arrived functional but with no wood/fiberboard end panels. So I made new endpanels made of solid oak, looked nice! The keybed was "clacky" as h**l, so I installed new rubber bushings for the J-wire kebed.

Certainly sounded nice, too - couldn't complain about the sound. But one oscillator went dead during the few years I had it, and it needed to go in to Wine Country for repair. Repair was about 75% the cost of the synth itself. As for how it worked in my "workflow" - well, not very good. I don't use it for synth-bass, I used it mostly for leads... and found myself needing patch storage for performances.

With all the repair hassles and lack of patch memory making problems for me, I eventually sold it off for about $800 (almost made all of my money back), and bought myself a used Alesis Ion to replace it in my rig (VA seems to be working for me very well, thank you). I'm happy now.

But this is just a simple story of a musician who took the "Reputation" bait, when I'm really not the target audience for that kind of thing. I'm not a synth collector, and I found this out the hard way.

But I also "inadvertently" helped out the vintage synth market by fixing and spiffing up a vintage synth, and putting it back out there on the market! The things that "vintage synth reputation" will make you do!

[Solderman]

I also "inadvertently" helped out the vintage synth market by fixing and spiffing up a vintage synth, and putting it back out there on the market!

Similar thing here as well. Bought mine in early 2000 in really great condition with a brand new j-wire keyboard fitted. Filter stopped self-oscillating less than a year later. I was poking around the board taking voltages with power on and fried something. Ended up replacing the filter chip($40), one envelope chip($70) and the VCA chip($20), and I had to socket them, which may not be good for longevity of those parts, but isn't hard to replace with better sockets, if so. The latter chip was a newer clone part, but it worked. Sounded a bit cleaner afterwards but the replacement filter worked as it should.

Noodling aside, I used it in a grand total of one published song for bass. Someone told me it makes the song sound like Vince Clarke.
I'm just rambling, so I should probably make my exit now.