Was just curious.. kawai, Yamaha, roland, casio? particularly the high-end pianos.

None of them. I think the value is determined by their age. A Roland 700NX will bring much better money than a 700SX.

I doubt anyone here can answer the question. A proper answer would be derived from hard data ... sales data. I doubt anyone here has sold enough used pianos to reach any justified conclusion.

It seems to me that there is less variation in the used selling price of pianos than there is in the buying prices. That being the case (once you get away from the very low end) the best resale value piano would be one of the cheaper ones.

I bought my Yamaha P80 for $900 and sold it 7 years later for $600 and I had several bidders eager to get it. That was a cheap, but good piano that retained its value far better than I had expected.

I think Yamaha is more saleable because everyone knows the name/brand. I'm not sure that necessarily translates into higher value though.

i really find that amazing. i guess i tend to look at DP's as technology products, not musical instruments and have a hard time believing people will pay that much at resale for a previous generation- or even 2 generations removed- computer with keys. Obviously i'm out of touch. Has their really been that much inflation in keyboard prices over the last 10-15 years to justify resale values holding up that well?

IMO, that's brand loyalty and consumer assumptions. Brand managment is a HUGE topic in marketing circles. Yamaha has created the image of making high quality pianos through heavy marketing efforts, even though companies like Kawai and Casio have provided better bang for the buck in the last few years. Competition is heavy and technology has changed much in the last couple of years. Consumer perceptions change slowly.

My son was going to buy grandson #1 a used DP for his first real piano. That is, until I convinced him to look at new DPs. There are five used Yamaha P80's on Amazon for $840. A new Yamaha CP33 sells for $1,000. A new Casio PX-350 sells for $799. I'm pretty sure that either would provide equal or better sound and keyboard action than the P80. But my son's perceptions were fixed until I prodded him. Fortunately I'm a pushy Grandpa.

Regards,

Dan.

i'm with you. to me this is like saying "you know i really liked the Nokia cellphones of the 90's. I think i'll buy one of them instead of the iPhone 5 or the latest droid". certainly my statement is hyperbole, particularly when midi keyboards of any era can drive VST's. But your analysis is spot on. Technology- when looking at the increased performance that today's price now purchases (applying Moore's Law...), has been deflating in real terms for years- therefore- in my mind- old technology - including digital pianos - is not worth very much.

Except that, with MIDI and VST pianos, as you mention, you can have the latest sounds (and given the mediocrity of even current built in sounds, that is important), but the crucial thing is that the keyboard itself is mostly mechanical. Cell phones are poor analogies. The physical interface isn't as important with most other technologies, or if it is important (touch screens etc...) it isn't as mechanical or as key to the technology being used. Moore's law applies to microchips - not mechanical items.

your argument is well taken but that still wouldn't convince me to pay 66% of the original price for a 7 yr old board, which was the real life example quoted earlier in the thread. once the electronics crap out the mechanical stuff isn't going to be worth very much. Moore's law seems very much in play with what drives the real value of the keyboard- its electronics (i'm sure i will be taken to task over that comment). a $900 keyboard today will seriously outperform a $900 board from 7 yrs ago (which doesn't even account for the loss of purchasing power of the currency), and to me that makes the resale value a difficult calculation. but the market is the market! if folks are willing to pay what seems to be a fairly generous price for used technology, then my criticism is pointless.

edit: my comment about the value of the technology is more than the price of the microchips- but the operating system, applications software, etc. the value of the intellectual property...

While I have no doubt Yamaha spends a lot of money creating a marketing image, there is much more to brand loyalty than that. Yamaha customer service is amazing. I know that from personal experience. There are also companies I will not buy from because of their reliability. Marketing only goes so far before actions mean more than words.

Moore's Law has nothing to do with the value of a keyboard. You might as well have said "Newton's Law seems very much in play."
Also, a $900 keyboard today is NOT very much different from a seven-year-old $900 keyboard. What would be different? A bit more polyphony, scarcely noticeable?

How about the same crappy sound, virtually unchanged for seven (no! ten!) years!?

As for resale: When a used piano sells for a small fraction of a new one I think it's partly based on:
1. Ignorance and mis-perception. Why should I buy that old piano for $1000 when I can get a new one for $1000?
2. Our training and predisposition to prefer new over used. If it's "used" it must not be worth much!

This is what I was going to say. I replaced my P80 with a much newer and more expensive Kawai MP8. Does it sound better? I don't really think so. I actually liked the P80 sounds better. Is the action better? Maybe. That could be debated. If so it would just be a Yamaha-Kawai difference, because today Yamaha is still using basically the same action as was in the P80 without any significant improvements. Even in very expensive pianos.

Really the only palpable improvement in that exchange was the partial pedal that the Kawai supports and the Yamaha did not. Well, the balanced output and USB-TO-HOST are nice, but not a huge deal. Otherwise I'm not really that glad I spent the extra $1,400.

Digital pianos do not depreciate very quickly, and the newer generations are not always noticeably better. Also my digital pianos experience basically no noticeable wear and tear.

Gear lust keeps me upgrading, but I didn't notice a big leap when I upgrade last time, and though I'm ready to upgrade again, I can't find a digital that is significantly better than my MP8. I had high hopes for both the FP7F and the AvantGrand I recently tried but I didn't care for either much.

alright, fine i won't argue the point further - this whole discussion doesn't say good things about the makers of DP's, but i guess the sophistication of the necessary software and the relatively small end market make wide-ranging advancements uneconomic.... although i do think VST's have moved forward much more seriously, and perhaps that is coloring my view of the hardware market.

.....anyway, i will find out for myself. what do you think street value is for a 7-8 yr old P-250 in mint condition. I think i paid about 2 grand for it...

A few points about the P80: (i) I bought one 12 years ago. Seven years ago, the P80 was already yesterday's news. (ii) It had three velocity layers, I think. (iii) Perhaps the worst thing about it as a self-contained DP is that it didn't have a partial pedal. Even on MIDI out, it won't transmit a partial pedal signal. Consequently, using the P80 as a MIDI controller requires a separate pedal connection -- i.e., more than simply using the MIDI outs of the P80 -- if one is to use the partial pedal features of the better software piano options. I think that maybe some folks like the P80 because it had a pretty heavy touch compared to other boards of its era and compared to the P90.

In any event, the P80 isn't the easiest board to use as a controller, since the lack of a partial pedal requires some workarounds.