I’ve been scouring ebay for Firebird trumpets ever since I purchased mine from the great Ray Vega in 2001. I saw 3 Firebirds sell for ridiculous prices in what I now call “the Firebird bubble” of 2005, all within a month or two of each other. One went for $9,000, another for $9,500, and the third and final one (which looked a lot like a scam to me, but I never confirmed it) for a whopping $10,000!

Since then, many Firebirds have been listed with extremely high BINs and have gone unsold. In 2014, I saw 2 listed (one at $9,100, and another at $4,700), not sell, and then relisted for a few hundred less (if at all), and eventually the seller gave up/did not want to come down to an actual reasonable price. Finally, a third horn was listed on Nov 9th, 2014 as an auction, not a BIN, but with a high reserve. The bidding got to $2,851 without hitting the reserve. The seller, now knowing approximately what the market would support, relisted the horn with a BIN of $3,500. After 6 tense days, someone scooped it up!

2020 Updates:

A listing popped up on 4/25/2020 with a BIN of $7,500. Due to the high BIN (and the state of the economy), I’d be very surprised if it sold. I’d also predict that the 2014 price of $3,500 would be about the highest the market will support. 

On 6/10/2020, the above listing was dropped to $6,499 after not selling at $7,500. Good luck, guy!

On 8/1/2020, a different Firebird was listed for $9,800! Apparently people don’t know how to do market research. These people will eventually learn to live with owning a Firebird, or will eventually part with it for the market value of $3,500 😉