A vocoder belonging to late Kraftwerk legend Florian Schneider has sold at auction for over $250,000The Sennheiser VSM-201 vocoder belonging to late Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider has sold at auction for $256,000.
Kraftwerk were one of the first groups to use the vocoder in electronic music, inspiring the likes of Daft Punk and many others. This makes Schneider’s vocoder a rare piece of electronic music history, which also includes custom modifications not seen on other vocoders of the same kind.

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According to Julien’s Auctions, the auction house which hosted the sale, the Schneider’s VSM-201 is “extremely rare, possibly unique”, with three modified MIDI jacks located on the back right of the chassis.
The vocoder was initially estimated to sell for between $30,000 and $50,000, so its quarter-million-plus final sale price smashed these estimates.
The VSM-201 was just one of 461 items sold by Julien’s as part of the Florian Schneider Collection. Many other pieces of gear in the collection came from Kraftwerk’s mysterious Kling Klang Studio in Düsseldorf, where the group recorded some of their most famed albums, including Trans-Europe Express (1977) and The Man-Machine (1978).
Credit: Julien’s Auctions
Other items in the collection included a super-rare 1930s Telefunken Volks-Trautonium pre-synthesiser, which Schneider purchased from its inventor Oskar Sala, as well as memorabilia including his 1968 German passport and one of the Panasonic Panaracer bycycles ridden by the band for their iconic Tour de France music video.
Like the Sennheiser VSM-201 vocoder, other items in the collection sold for way beyond their estimates; Schneider’s EMS Synthi A suitcase synthesizer, for example, sold at $115,000, smashing its $15,000 – $20,000 estimate.
As Julien’s explains, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has made a statement saying it is interested in including some of the items from the collection in an upcoming exhibition from March until December 2027. “The winning bidder will be asked if their contact information can be shared with the V&A by Julien’s to discuss a loan,” Julien’s writes.
Learn more about the Florian Schneider Collection via Julien’s.
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