Rescued from being thrown away
This one's a bit happier than a lot so far. My sister's then-boyfriend was working in a little theatre when the sound guys were having a clearout. "Want any bits, Stu?" they said.
"Oh" he said, "what's that keyboard sitting there?"
"Oh that?", they said, "It's knackered and beyond repair and it's total cack anyway. We're going to bin it."
"Hang on then", says Stu, and later that evening tells me about it in the pub. It's knackered, it's kind of black with blue bits, it's got Fablon-covered "wood" ends, and it's going in the bin. Do I want it? Yes, I do. Might as well, eh, if nothing else I can salvage a few bits. No idea what it was.

So a night or two later on the way to the pub I pop round to Stu's, he opens up the car and there in the boot is a rather battered but not too awful Korg Polysix. Sure enough, it was was knackered - none of the knobs worked (50p chip from Maplin), half the voices didn't work (took two years to get three envelope and four filter chips - the keyboard enthusiasts will know what I mean when I say "SSM chips") and the battery had leaked onto the CPU board (mostly time, repairing the traces eaten by battery juices).

Now the wooden ends are falling off, so I'm going to B&Q to buy some nice wood to make new ones, better than the old chipboard ones. Or maybe I'll pop the lid open and give it a tune and service. Or, maybe I'll just make another cup of tea and fire it up and play it for a bit. It's worth quite a bit now, if you look them up on eBay, but I'm not planning on selling.

Thanks, Stu.

Length is about what you'd expect for a full-size 61-note C-C.
(gordonjcp, Sat 16 Aug 2008, 15:19, Reply)