In the USA, the reason for the high is two fold...

1 - This is the MAP (minimum advertised price) was set by Yamaha with pressure from the dealer network. Most of the dealers who sell Clavinova (No Advertised price allowed) want the potential profit to be in the same percentage they can get from Clavinova. They can sell it at whatever price they want. But the price of $5200 will be everywhere on the net, so they can get a local deal by giving a deeper discount.

2 - The target customer is like the 1970's/80's organ customer... 50 to 75 year old men with expendable income. Do you really think a home organ cost $4000-$5000 in 1985?!?

Always shop around and buy from someone who can help you if you need it.

I got the best price for my Korg from Thomann- great support from over there too, and they know their stuff.

you sold the korg overseas?

My light-weight S950 that's long paid for looks and plays better by the day.

Well, I had a couple organs in the 80's and I paid $8,000.00 for the Yamaha HS8T and that was a GOOD price then. I think MAP was around $10k.Others were as much as $20k.
You can pay $45k for a Lowrey organ today.

The Tyros and other arrangers today are a good buy.

One reason the organs cost so much is cabinet and sound system. I am on the fence as to get an older organ or a T5 and make a organ out of it. I'm leaning towards the T5.

Lee

Yes. I bought a Hammond home organ in 83 and paid about $5000 for it. I don't remember the model name or number but it had drawbars for both keyboards and quite a variety of other, non-organ, sounds. As I recall it didn't sound as good as my Tyros 3 which is hooked up to a 30 year old home stereo with those big wooden cabinet speakers they sold back them. And it sure wasn't as reliable. The repair man was out 2 or 3 times in the year or so before I left the organ and my soon to be ex wife.

From 1975 to mid 1978 I worked for the local Hammond Organ and Steinway dealer in sales. At the time one of the more popular and very well selling models was the so called spinet style "The Aurora". It had built in Leslie, as I recall it sold for $3500 at the time. The console model called the Concorde was price about $5000, you can bet not many were sold. I do remember the 2 customers who bought them, at the time they just didn't walk in and buy first time around both men were very successful business men, one was vice president of a now defunct supermarket chain and the other owned a Cott Soda distributorship.

Interesting too I once sold a Steinway to a congressman for his teen daughter. He and his family walked in on a Sunday afternoon looked at a $8k Steinway, the girl played a couple of notes on it, daddy said we'll take it. That all happened in about 15 minutes, fastest I've ever sold a Steinway.