Values are estimates from recent comparable sales — condition, accessories, and included extras vary. Always compare before buying.
Selling your Elecraft K3/100? Run its Rig Check → Answer the questions a sharp buyer will ask and get a condition report for your listing — a fully answered report lets a truly nice radio demand a good price.
Median sold price per month, trailing 1 months. Roughly flat over the period.
Based on classifieds listings marked SOLD — asking prices sellers marked as sold, not confirmed sale prices. Refreshed daily from our deal-scan comp checks.
| Date sold | Item | Price | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual sold records for this model are still being compiled — the fair-value estimate above is based on 7 recent sales. | |||
No live below-market deals on this model right now — the good ones sell fast. Get the daily digest and you’ll see the next one before anyone else.
The Elecraft K3/100 is the little big radio -- an 8-pound box that sat at or near the top of Sherwood's receiver performance table for the better part of a decade, the benchmark other receivers were measured against. Serious DXers, contesters, and CW operators bought it for the ears: down-conversion architecture, narrow crystal roofing filters, silent solid-state T/R switching with true full QSK, and a noise floor that kept getting better with firmware. The genius is the modularity -- it shipped as a no-soldering kit or factory-built, and you grow it with plug-in modules: the KRX3 second receiver for diversity, the KAT3 internal tuner, the 100-watt amp module, CW filters down to 200 Hz. That modularity is also the used-market homework: two K3s with different module loads are different radios at different prices, so get the exact inventory -- which filters are in which receiver, whether the synthesizer and USB upgrades are fitted, the serial number (later means more factory fixes). Classic second-hand gotchas: modules installed in hardware but never enabled in the CONFIG menu, and early units that are RS-232 only. Also know the documented quirk -- reversed ALC polarity versus the industry standard -- before pairing it with a third-party amplifier. The menu system rewards reading the manual; the receiver rewards everything else. A loaded late-serial K3/100 remains one of the great used values in high-end HF.
The K3S (2015+) brought a lower-phase-noise synthesizer, built-in USB (early K3s are RS-232 only), and a quieter noise floor -- meaningful upgrades. But most K3S improvements were offered as retrofit kits, so a well-upgraded late-serial K3 is close to a K3S. Ask specifically about the synthesizer and USB board upgrades; those two are the big price differentiators on a used K3.
Modules. A base K3/100 and a loaded one with the subreceiver, internal tuner, and a full set of CW roofing filters were thousands apart new, and the used market reflects it. Get the complete module and filter inventory before comparing prices -- and check which filters are in the main versus sub receiver, since diversity needs matched pairs. The subreceiver alone is the upgrade owners call transformative.
The K3 was designed as a no-soldering modular kit (about five hours), and kit-built units are everywhere. A careful builder's kit is every bit as good as factory -- but you are trusting the builder, so look for clean assembly, all the hardware, and the manual. Either way, budget an evening with the CONFIG menu: every installed module has to be enabled in software or it simply will not function, the classic second-hand head-scratcher.
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