Atten: Bruce Collins

[Rick Erickson]

Hey Bruce - I treid to contact you through email, but never received a response. A customer of mine bought this amp:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...romZR40QQfviZ1

The auction claims it was originally purchased from your brother and that you did the work on it. Is this the same amp, or did he copy the text from another amp sale and claim it was the one he was selling? This seems like a completely different amp from the one described in the auction text, although the serial number is correct.

RE

[Rick Erickson]

Wow - the silence is deafening...

[TD_Madden]

maybe on summer-vacation....

Did you try calling Bruce?

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

Hmmm... I really don't remember very much about this one... my brother Lew has had 17 or 18, tweed Fender 6L6 amps in the past 5 or 6 years.
I know he has had at least four or five tweed Bassman amps.

I do recall an old 5F6 that he bought from someone that needed some TLC but had some weird stuff in it that look totally original.

The auctioneer says it is a 57 and Lew said it was a 59?
What are the trannys saying?

Also, based on the vintage nature, I don't think I would have used Nichicon or Xicon HI-V caps in any real Fender amp refurb.
Mallory 150s, to replace any possible old Sprague coupling caps, yes.

During that time I did have about +98,000 real, vintage late 50s through late 60s Allen Bradley carbon comp, 1W and 1/2 W resistors and card board boxes .... I still have thousands and thousands, and that is what I would have used to replace any suspect resistors.

The fuse holder and cap looks right but the on-off switches in the picture look like something from Russia. ??
I'll have ask Lew to take a look at it and see if he can shed some light on the subject.

Main thing though, is the amp any good and is the owner OK with it?

[Rick Erickson]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for responding. This amp is a mess. The last I heard the buyer and seller were working it out. There are so many things about this amp that are not original that I could hardly imagine it being from your shop. I thought you should know about it though when I saw the auction page and your name being dropped... I can email you my report if you like.
In a nutshell: The PT is not original, the tweed has been replaced, the pots have been replaced, the speaker wires are rubber coated - not cloth, the coupling caps are similar but not Mallory brand. They are the less expensive 630V ones that CE Dist. sells. I don't have a problem with them, they just don't match the description of the amp in the auction. There is a 3/8 hole drilled between the 2nd & 3rd 12AX7 for a jack of some kind. These are all things that individually can kill a deal for someone looking for a "collector" piece. (I know you know this, but some people reading this might not get it)

RE

[Bruce / Mission Amps]

God what's with that +$8900.00 price tag?
I hope he didn't pay more then a couple thou for it.

Lew has possibly owned, traded and sold 5 or 6 tweed Bassman amps in the last four or five years and I hope this was a guy pulling text off one auction,
thinking it was this amp.
I can't imagine Lew not mentioning the mods or at least a replaced PT, if aware of it... etc.
Regardless, I'm sorry I don't have any real concrete recollection of this amp.

Sometimes he would come over to the shop with an amp as say something like ... "see if you can get this fixed up and running right because, XYZ person wants to buy it from me this Friday".... that might be the only time I was aware of the amp and not even hear what happened to it after making sure it was good sounding and a player.
Not saying this is that amp at all.... because there was a time when he was moving a ton of gear around and probably had $60,00 to $70,000 worth of amps and guitars while parring down to a more reasonable collection and I saw a lot of amps.

By the way, I don't have any issues with those CE import polyester or polyprop caps either.
To be honest, I think they might be as good, or close to it, as the Mallory 150s or O'Drops.

[Rick Erickson]

I do understand about not remembering every repair, or noticing flaws under pressure...
Years ago a friend and very good customer asked me to look over a BF Super Reverb at one of the Seattle guitar shows. I gave it a once over and told him it looked "pretty good". He bought it and brought it to my shop to give it the usual treatment. I was horrified when I took a closer look and found that the cab was from a 70's SF amp and the tolex had been poorly replaced, speakers were funky etc.. Stuff hapens, and it's nearly impossible to be 100% on all the time. The customer was understanding and had me order a replacement cab, install a set of re-coned C10R Jensen's that I had laying around and rebuild the electronics. That amp turned out to be one of the nicest Super Reverbs I have heard. I just found out that the Bassman now belongs to the customer, and I am in the process of giving him a bid on rebuilding it. He wants it as a player amp, not for his collection of museum pieces. Life is good!

RE