I was very lucky with the Jupiter 8...I had sold it, and the guy I sold it to, sold it back to me several years later because he wanted another synth I had at the time.

When I first bought it, it had been used once in a studio, and a month or so later, the guy passed away (heart attack), and his widow put it in the case and stuck up it in the attic of the night club in Newfoundland they owned. She shut down the club, and lived it as a regular home, but eventually, she turned it into a boarding house.

She passed on, and the place went up for sale.

I got the synth at the estate sale...there were several other vintage items...a Rogers drum set, a Fender bass (one of the first...still had original strings, and picks with the store's name on them), a red Fender Contempo Combo organ (I wish I had bought that too), a Fender Twin, a Fender Bassman piggy back with two 12's, a Fender column PA system...everything was as new...apparently it was all bought, by the guy for the house band to use...the last instrument he bought was the Jupiter 8.

Some guys I played with at the time, in a band called the Ducats, a seven piece rock and roll show, bought the rest of the gear, and probably still have it.

The one I have, a Jupiter 8a, has a MIDI retrofit, and it is the latest version with the more stable oscillators and the 14 bit microprocessor (they were 12 bit)...nothing sounds like it, and everything works as it did the day it was new...I don't ever plan to sell it.

I had a JX-8P for a while, with the programmer, which was such a cool addition...that synth is becoming quite valuable too, especially if you have the programmer...it was an excellent bread and butter synth for all those strings, brass and organs, and of course, it was velocity and after-touch sensitive, and very warm sounding...I remember it had a "unison" mode, whereby it stacked two modules together (it was essentially two JX-3P's) and you had a three note poly sound that rivaled a Minimoog for balls.

Vintage synths are just getting to be a valuable commodity like guitars and amps....you've got a great synth there, Nigel...hold on to it.

Ian