Fender Rhodes Stage 73
The electric piano that gigging players actually bought, and that the second-hand columns couldn't keep in stock.
Overview
The Stage 73 is the working musician's Rhodes. It is the flat-top, no-amplifier version, a slab you carried to the gig and plugged into whatever amp the venue had. Period dealer listings from the British music press put its list price at £946 with a discounted street price around £610. That is a 35% saving, and the shops advertised it in bold. Another dealer's copy quoted £880 as "usual" against £680, and a York superstore listing shows the Stage 73 at £599. These were rarely sold at list. They were sold as a deal, and as the practical alternative to the pricier Suitcase models that carried their own amplifier and speakers.
The Stage 73 shared its action and tone-generating guts with the rest of the Rhodes line. The amplification was stripped away, and that is why it became the gigging standard. Players who already owned an amp didn't need to pay for a second one built into the piano, and the flat top made it stackable and road-friendly in a way the Suitcase wasn't. The used market shows it. The Second-hand Index published in Sound International (Month Year, p.X) recorded an average asking price of £418 for the Stage 73, against £500 for the Stage 88 and £500 - £650 for the Suitcase 88. The smaller, simpler instrument fetched less money but moved steadily.
According to the period record, the Stage 73 was not a collector's trophy the way the Suitcase models became. The ads treat it as a tool. One 1986 *Electronics & Music Maker* classified offers a Stage 73 MkII in "excellent condition, flat top" for £295. That is a steep fall from the new prices of a decade earlier, and these pianos were worked hard and depreciated accordingly. The same column carries a Stage 54 (a smaller variant) at £200 from a single owner, and the seller's dry humour suggests he knew exactly what he had and wasn't going to oversell it.
The Stage 73's reputation rests on that unglamorous reliability. It is the Rhodes you find in the back of the van, on the club stage, and in the second-hand columns month after month — a piano that earned its place by doing the job without fuss, and that remains the most sensible entry point into the Rhodes sound for anyone who already has an amp and a strong back.
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