# Dumpster Diving...

- Site: Analog Industries
- Author: Chris Randall
- Date: 2007-03-21
- URL: https://analogindustries.com/2007/03/dumpster-diving/

You know the stories you always hear about the guy that found the perfect condition Aries modular in his friend's closet? This is one of them. [pronobozo](http://www.pronobozo.com/) sent me a picture of this honker which came to his possession in just such a manner. What that white thing on top is anyone's guess. Perhaps pronobozo will enlighten us. Clickies for much, much bigger.

So, what's your best garage sale find? I haven't had a spectacular one, truthfully. I did buy a 303 off of a fucktard in one of our opening bands for $150, then the very next day took it to Rogue Music and sold it to them for $1000 cash. (They no doubt sold it to some Japanese uber-analog otaku for twice that the following day.) But I don't think that really counts because I didn't actually keep the gear. If I had bought the 303 for $150 and kept it, it would probably qualify.

## Comments (33)

**penzoil washington** (2007-03-21):

i''m currently chiecking out an Aries which I helped my friend buy about 12 years ago and which he now plans to sell. Hardly the most reliable systems, and more Arpy than beefy, but good raw fun.

Don't start me on gear finds. I've flipped things, like a 909 I took off a guy for $100 who was literally going to use it for target practice after a pawn shop refused to buy it. Once I bought an Oscar and a 909 for $1400 and sold the 909 for $1000 the same day.
I think I also got $1400 for the OSCar after I got fed up repairing it for the 4th time. Picked up a silver 1176 a few months back for $900, sold it for $1400 and picked up a 2-1176 for $1950 in its place. Also made out very well on every piece analog gear I bought in the mid-nineties and sold later. The good ol' pre-eBay days.

**Diamond Dave McAnally 103** (2007-03-21):

Not that this guitar would possibly interest anybody here, but I got a 78 BC Rich Bich out of a pawn shop for $95 about 10 years ago. Had a really shitty paint job I'm guessing some King Diamond wannabe with little painting skillz donned it with (think 60's era Batmobile). Had a broken jack so I'm assuming the pawn shop assumed it was broken and called it shit (and probably didn't know anything about guitars to begin with). I held onto it for about 7 years so I think that counts as keeping it (although I never really did much with it...even though it sounded pretty fat, it didn't fit what I was doing).

**Andreas** (2007-03-21):

I bought my Korg MS10 for about €150 off a guy who found it in his uncle's wardrobe/cellar/whatever. Apparently it had been there since 1982.

Him: "I don't know though, it might be broken. It can only play one note at a time."
Me: "Yeah, well... I'll try to fix it."

**razielpanic** (2007-03-21):

very, very dusty Akai AX60 for $15 from a tenant of mine who didn't feel like taking it with him when he moved out. cleaned up quite nicely... almost like new.

**Angstrom** (2007-03-21):

We got two ms20s , one for £30, one for free off a bandmate's friend.
This was early 90's when they were still considered old junk," I mean it doesn't even do chords, was on the ark, looks like science equipment" .. etc.
We also got two ms10s also, one required a lot of fixing, that was Echo and the Bunymens one (!). Never really rated the ms10, good in combination with the ms20s though.

**psylux** (2007-03-21):

No big 808 or 303 stories,but before ebay, an astute pawn shop buyer could regularly find such deals in Austin. 606 and 707 for $5 each with no wall wart - one trip to Radio shack fixed them up nicely. I got a DX100 or $10 - same way. I guess they had so much 'working' gear the stuff that wouldnt power up right away was just junk to them.

**dm** (2007-03-21):

I fished a Peavey Mace out of the trash, 150 watts with a tremelo channel and springverb. Cranked through my Ampeg 4x12 its quite nice figuring it was well... fished out of the trash.

**longneck** (2007-03-21):

Traded a crappy fender practice amp for a working set of moog taurus pedals about 16 years ago. Needless to say, the padals are gone now but thats another story.shit...

**RexRhino** (2007-03-21):

I don't know, maybe it is just me, but I couldn't buy something for insanely cheap prices if it was a person I met through normal personal or professional contacts. I could rip off a pawn shop, no problem (they rip other people off all the time)... or some guy on ebay, because there is a fair bidding process and the guy COULD have sold it for a fair price if he made the effort. But someone I know or work with, or even a friend of a friend, I would have to be honest with them.

Unless the guy from an opening band did something to especially piss me off (to take Chris's example), I would have told the guy how much his 303 was worth. $900 profit isn't enough money for me to make a real-life enemy, or to get the reputation for being less than honest. It isn't that I wouldn't do bad things, but I would have to be a soldier of fortune, or a hitman, or a bank robber, or something glamorously evil (and I don't really have the ninja skills nessicary to take up those occupations). :)

**penzoil washington** (2007-03-21):

so, rexrhino, if someone you didn't know offered you his dad's 57 Les Paul for $500 you'd tell him it's worth tens of thousands, right? At least if he were a friend of a friend?

**Chris Randall** (2007-03-21):

I actually agree with Rex. Unless the person is a complete choad, or a business with ill repute (as in the pawn shop example) I would inform the person of what they were doing. While I'm as atheist as they come, I'm ironically quite superstitious (aren't all musicians?) and a big believer in what goes around comes around.

Now, that said, if I came across a Prophet 5 at a yard sale for $50, well, I might be willing to accept the "comes around" part.

-CR

**studio nebula** (2007-03-21):

I found a near-mint 808 in a yard sale for $100.

--Adam

**sepia** (2007-03-21):

I bought a Yamaha cs20m for 50$ at a yard sale last year, i later sold it for over 600$. I did'nt feel bad at all,it helped the old drunk rocker pay his rent. Some people, like him, don't have the knowledge required to go and sell gear to gearheads at higher prices. That synth most likely would'nt of sold at all otherwise.

**Thomas** (2007-03-21):

I've had 3 lucky keyboard finds in San Francisco, all of which I've kept and use to this day:

1) A "broken" optigan in Taos which came with 24 discs for $75! The problem turned out to be a blown fuse, which had to be soldered on. Took an hour to fix, and that included driving to Radio Shack to get the replacement fuse.

2) A wurlitzer 100 electric piano (the old heavy ones) for $6 at a garage sale from a dude who seemed desperate to get ANY cash at all for it. (My high lasted much longer than his.)

3) A wurlitzer 200a electric piano for $50 at another garage sale.

And if anyone is into electric organs, they are pretty much for the taking on craigslist these days, as long as you've got space to store em. Kimballs and Lowreys from the late 70's and 80s, in particular, are fantastic.

t-

**noisegeek** (2007-03-21):

My aunt was going to throw out her '69 Gibson Hummingbird because she lost all the bridge pegs and didn't want to go through the "trouble" of replacing them in order to sell it. Now normally this would be one of those situations like Rex was talking about, but things are kind of weird with that side of the family. In the end I got the guitar in exchange for keeping quiet about some stuff she didn't want my folks to find out about.

**Angstrom** (2007-03-21):

on the subject of choadiness,
the first ms20 I got was when I saw some guys filling a dumpster with old furniture, they were clearing out an old flat (apartment) I saw the ms20 being carried towards it and made my move, the gleam in my eye made it cost £30

the second one of my bandmate's fiend was kind of strange, the guy just didn't seem to care that it was worth money. "not to me" he said " if you can use it thats fine". Sort of odd, but there you go. He gave us the first ms10 too, I think.

bear in mind that an ms20 in 1992 was not as prized as it would be today. In 1992 it was still considered a 'thin' and cheap analogue synth, like a semi-modular wasp. It wasn't thought of as 'proper' like a Moog or Arp.

**plau** (2007-03-21):

A few years I bought an EDP Wasp for £40 from a car boot sale....broke down a few weeks later and cost me exactly the same to have it repaired...still a bargain methinks.

**thelizard** (2007-03-21):

It's almost depressing thinking about the number of wonderful, functional instruments (not just synths) that end up in junkyards...

I got a Korg DDD-1 for $25, and a Rane compressor for free when my boss was cleaning out the studio.

**dm** (2007-03-21):

I got in an argument with a woman after making an offer for her Lowrey (a really nice one). Yeah I totally lowballed her... but thats business. What a bad scene that was.

**mitchell** (2007-03-21):

How's this...

I bought a whiteface Odyssey from Rumbo Recorders (studio of Daryl Dragon, aka the Captain in Captain and Tennile) for $100 sometime around '94. It played pretty bad... keyboard trigger weirdness, and I wasn't hip to the very easy procedure of cleaning the bus bar in a J-wire keyboard with a Q-tip and alcohol. Doh. So I had it for a while, then sold it for $350, and thought I made a killing. Doh again. What's even worse is that Rumbo had SIX FRICKIN' Odysseys at the time for $100 a pop. I should've bought all of those fuckers!

Around the same time, a friend of mine found me a Roland VP-330 vocoder/strings for $230 from a pawnshop in Florida. I bought it and owned it for a long time, 'til some guy offered me $1000 in cash for it (and I really wanted a Nord Lead!), so I took it. Now you can buy Nord Lead 1's for probably $400 and that damn vocoder is worth bank.

I recently bought my Prophet-5 off Craigslist L.A. for $1000... that's not super cheap, and it needed a little TLC, but for about $100 in additional parts from Wine Country and some of my time tweaking, it's basically mint, and some poor bastard would probably pay $1800 for it on the 'bay. Not that it's for sale, like ever!!!

And finally, my score of all scores about 15 years back: my then band used to rehearse in a guy's basement, and one of the hangers-on had a Pro-One that ended up there (he wasn't really a musician)... I asked him what he would sell it for... "$35" said he. And that's how I scored a Pro-One for $35... it was missing a fuseholder. BTW, I also sold that for somewhere around $300... and thought I was making a killing!

I should've kept ALL OF THIS SHIT!!!!!

Mitchell

**actionbasic** (2007-03-21):

I found an Oberheim DX Drum Machine in the garbage about 5 years ago. Took it to practice that night and have been using it ever since. Love the garbage. It will love you back.

**inasilentway** (2007-03-21):

Found an original Big Muff Pi in the garbage...just needed its battery clip soldered back on. Fuzz tones unmatched by anything else.

Fender Rhodes Suitcase 73 from craigslist for $125...blown speakers, but turns out the 1/4" outputs worked fine!

The best though, is the Wurli 200A that my uncle has had for years, since they were new. He got one of those Yamaha all-singing-all-dancing dealies, so he gave me the Wurli as he didn't need it anymore! I'm considering selling the Rhodes now that I've got a Wurli, but I know that in a few years I'll be kicking myself.

**mwanz** (2007-03-21):

1966 Bright red Fender Contempo Organ that was thought to be broken. I paid for shipping, found it to be in perfect working order and gave the guy an equitek E-100 mic out of pure guilt.

**boobs** (2007-03-21):

i found a moog opusIII for $50. it was a little out of shape.. some keys wouldn't work. i used the hell out of it and sampled it to no end. sold it for $300 a few years later. it has a nice filter and really nice tone overall.

on 2 occasions i found vintage urei 1620 mixers. mint condition for $250 each. kept for a while. wish i still had one. they sound HUGE and i would definitely use them for recording. i sold one of them for $1600 and the other for $1300. crazy.

i knew i guy in florida who found an old les paul.. (60's??) at a garage sale. (i dont know shit about guitars) apparently it was one of those "this is the guitar to have" guitars. he actually talked the guy down in price because "the strings probably need to be replaced" and paid $75 for it. i guess it's a $3500 guitar???

**pronobozo** (2007-03-21):

it was a good friend of mine and she offered to give it to me. Her uncle had bought the kit and built it himself back in the day. He had it for a long time and then gave it to the kids, they played with it and thought it was mostly broken. The keyboard needs fixing up but for now I just control it with the cv from my sh-101. Have the original book for it too, I should get that scanned in.

Since there are 6 oscillators(it's the white box) and 4 outputs for each(pulse,saw,tri,sine) you can get some real fat full growling bust-your-speaker type sounds. The multimode filter on it rocks and can take anything up to a screaming window breaker.

She requested that I make a few tracks for her uncle so I did with a friend(about 5 years ago) , really raw and loud and recorded it live, I still have them kicking around somewhere.

There'd be no way I'd sell it since it was given to me from a friend and besides I'd never want to sell it because it rocks. Even if I was on my last dollar and needed a meal, I'd be on teh side of the road with no shoes cuddling up beside it.

-pronobozo

**oldmanfury** (2007-03-21):

I spend an ungodly amount of time at thrift-stores, swap meets, garage sales, scavenging in general

Yamaha CS01 - $3
Poly61 - $20
DX-11 - $20
Casio CZ-101 $15

None are Moogs / Arps, or all that desirable, but all were fun toys.

Best score wasn't a synth - I found an Arne Jacobsen Swan chair next to a dumpster with a couple of guys tearing down a shed drinking beer - I offered them $30, and the king redneck said "SOLD!" (beer money!). Freekin' thing is worth over $3k now that we cleaned it up. I'm keeping it.

**subbasshead** (2007-03-21):

i bought a Roland Chorus Echo 555 for us$150 a while back, what a great machine! balanced in/out, sound on sound etc.... no wonder Augustus Pablo named a track after it.... i aslo score a dozen brand new repalcement tapes for it from Roland in New Zealand - apparently back in the day someone messed up the order & they got 500 for stock instead of the 50 they ordered so was probably the last place in the world with the genuine article... a few years later i ended up paying us$250 for a Space Echo 201 from someone in oz... i'll never part with either, no plugin will ever replace the physicality of them...

**Black-Man** (2007-03-21):

I once sold a mini-moog for $350. Does that qualify?

**inteliko** (2007-03-22):

Korg Karma mint and expanded $300, case, stand, rich folks sold it, pulled up to their driveway 2 beemers.

My buddy got an Ob-1 for free for someone he was just helping out install vst's and stuff, it didnt work( actually needed a a transistor i think which cost $0.30) works fine now.

Worst story, when My uncle passed my mom sold all his guitars for $400...he had an old Dobro from Mandolin Bros purchased in the 30's or 40's, he had an old gibson f-top in his collection also(50's), he had a newer gibson acoustic also, worth more than $400 alone. That pawn shop dealer I hope is burning in fuckin hell.

**inteliko** (2007-03-22):

Oh yeah, when I told my mom she was crazy and I wouldve loved to have themguitars , she asked why would you want those old guitars??, you can get a nice new one".

**penzoil washington** (2007-03-22):

I got my SRE-555 chorus echo from a PA company for $80, but I've spent $300 on repairs over the years... does it still qualify?

**studio nebula** (2007-03-22):

This is bringing back memories... I did once tell some college kid trying to sell a beat-up 808 for like $40 that he could do a helluva lot better by selling it online. This was in the pre-eBay days.

I have two rackmount MXR flanger/doublers, which I bought before they were "vintage". I paid $35 and $55 for them, I think.

I have a CR-78, near mint, with Anvil case, instruction manual, and glossy dealer sheets. I paid $69 for it. A friend scored the programming gizmo for it some time later for $15.

I have a LinnDrum that I got on eBay for $150. A week later I met Roger Linn in person at AES. He thought it was hilarious.

Regrets? I passed up a 909 in a second-hand shop for $179. I passed up an Eventide Instant Flanger in the same shop for some other ridiculously low price. I bought the one-VCO monosynth that's part of that odd Roland quasi-modular system at a yard sale for $25 (I think) and gave it away because it didn't really jazz me at the time.

I never should've sold the 808, even for the tidy profit I made.

--Adam

**wquoyle** (2007-03-23):

Regrets? I can still picture the Turnkey ads (big London music shop) clearing out 303s for £39 in '86...