Synth believed to belong to Vangelis becomes most expensive ever sold at £401,465

A synth believed to have been owned by the late Greek electronic music pioneer Vangelis has been sold for £401,465, setting a new record for the most expensive synth ever sold. The Yamaha CS-80 was listed on Reverb by an Athens-based seller, who claimed the instrument was previously owned by Vangelis and used on his 1977 album ‘Spiral’. It was also described as the artist’s “very first Yamaha CS-80” in the listing, which has since been removed following the sale. The record-breaking sale follows a number of high-profile auctions of historic electronic music equipment, including Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider’s Kling Klang Sennheiser VSM-201 vocoder, which sold for $256,000 last year. Vangelis was a pioneering figure in electronic music and helped bring synthesizers into the mainstream through film composition works including Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner.