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Vangelis’s first Yamaha CS-80 was listed on Reverb for £400k – and someone actually bought it
[Editor’s note: Vangelis’s CS-80 has now sold, but above is another vintage CS-80 at only a tenth of the price, just £40,000…]
Earlier this week, a vintage Yamaha CS-80 supposedly once belonging to iconic Chariots of Fire composer Vangelis was listed on Reverb for over £400,000. Perhaps even more unbelievably, though, someone actually bought it.
The seller hailed from Athens, though there was no concrete evidence linking the Yamaha synth to Vangelis. Though, the listing claimed that the vintage synth was the very same one used throughout the Greek composer’s 1977 debut, Spiral. It was also apparently Vangelis’ first Yamaha CS-80, and, in the seller’s words, was priced “accordingly” at £401,465.62.
Other details included the lack of blemishes on the synth – bar “a little cigarette burn on the top A key”, which does fit the bill, considering Vangelis did partake in a smoke here and there.
The seller promised the CS-80 was fully functional, “with its original stand and lid”. It also apparently had no serial number, due to it being an “early prototype”.
A vintage CS-80 is already a guaranteed pay day – last year, Gear News branded the synth one of the most expensive of all time, and we concur. You can easily bag tens of thousands on a standard CS-80… but, if it was also owned by the mind behind the epic 1994 Blade Runner soundtrack, it’s sure to hike up the price a bit.
If the claims are true, this would be a very significant piece of musical history to own. A CS-80 owned by Vangelis would certainly have been treated with care; the composer famously spoke of his adoration for the Yamaha CS-80, with the synthesizer becoming a mainstay in his life.
In a 1984 interview with Electronics & Music Makers journalist Dan Goldstein, Vangelis said: “[The Yamaha CS-80] is the most important synthesiser in my career – and, for me, the best analogue synthesiser design there has ever been… It needs a lot of practice if you want to be able to play it properly.”
He even went on to dismiss Yamaha’s attempts to improve on the CS-80, calling the DX7 a “commercial little toy” of a synthesiser that was “a step back from the CS-80”.
The sale of Vangelis’s CS-80 marks the most expensive synth sale in history. Last year, Kraftwerk had a clear out and bagged $256,000 at auction for their Kling Klang Sennheiser VSM-201 Vocoder.
To inspect the Yamaha CS-80 listing, head to Reverb.
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