Endurism Spotlight: Yamaha U1

A Yamaha U1 built in the 1980s still sells for €2.500 to €3.500 in the Netherlands today. The ones from 1968 to 1971 go for about €1.950. Four decades of daily playing have barely moved the price.

That is the whole case for owning one. A piano is one of the few things you carry into a house that gives your money back.

The money

Renting is how most people start. An acoustic upright rents from around €48 a month. Over ten years that is €5.760. At the end you return the piano and own nothing.

Buying runs the other way. A good serviced U1 costs about €2.750. Tuning runs €75 to €125 a session, twice a year at most, so budget €150 a year. Ten years of ownership comes to roughly €4.250.

The resale closes the gap. Your instrument is still worth what a 1980s U1 fetches now, close to €2.500. Your real cost across the decade is the tuning. The €2.750 sat inside the piano and came back out.

The renter pays more and keeps nothing. The owner pays less and holds an asset.

The object

The U1 is a 121 cm upright that Yamaha has built to the same brief since 1957. It has a solid spruce soundboard and a full cast-iron frame. The hammers can be revoiced and the felts replaced. Nothing inside is glued shut for good.

A technician can regulate the action and rebuild the mechanism decades in. Parts are available. People who service them are too. This is why the used market runs so deep.

Ownership

An acoustic piano holds the one advantage a screen cannot. It does not go out of date. A digital piano loses most of its value within a decade. A newer model has already replaced it. The U1 from your childhood is the U1 on Marktplaats this morning, priced much as the day it shipped.

Tune it and keep it away from the radiator. It outlives you. The small scratches and the mellowing tone are the patina dividend at work.

A used U1 gives your money back and plays for a century. Own better.