OP-1 is not dead say Teenage Engineering - stop paying silly eBay prices

12 Dec 2018 by Robin Vincent |

5,0 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

Teenage Engineering out of stock notice · Source: Teenage Engineering

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Teenage Engineering has responded to comments about hugely inflated OP-1 prices that were found in online second-hand stores like eBay and Reverb. These appeared after reports in the media that the OP-1 synthesizer had been discontinued.

OP-1 more to come

About 5 days ago stories began to emerge that the OP-1 portable synthesizer and sequencer had been discontinued. Not sure how it came about exactly but many stores have been out of stock for a while, some even list it as discontinued, the Teenage Engineering website store says “delayed until further notice” and with the new OP-Z imminent it would be easy to assume that the OP-1 was at an end. Not me however, I missed that story completely! It was all over Reddit and many other popular music tech news sites, YouTubers even made YouTubes about it.

Almost immediately OP-1’s started appearing on auction sites for ridiculous prices. The retail price of the OP-1 is £899 but it’s up on Reverb from £1320. It’s been seen on eBay for over £1000 and that’s been driven up with actual bidding. What’s the matter with people? But there have been plenty in other parts of the world going for silly money, thousands of dollars. And it was at this point that Teenage Engineering stepped in. They posted this image on Facebook:

OP-1 auction · Source: Teenage Engineering

Teenage Engineering said:

no one should pay this price for an OP-1. so hang in there.
last week a rumor circulated that the OP-1 was dead. no one was more surprised than us.
however, we’ve been working hard on updating the hardware platform in order to keep the product alive for many years to come. this is causing a brief stop in the production, but we will be up and running at full speed shortly.
OP-1 4-ever

So when it says “paused until further notice” on the website it means exactly that and that there will be further notice and it will become unpaused.

But I guess it’s nice to know that even modern gear reward your investment if there’s enough interest in it. But also make certain of your facts before you buy something second hand at hugely inflated prices.