Vintage Fender Bandmaster Amp & Cabinet – USA 1963

This is a classic 1963 Fender Bandmaster amp & matching 2 x 12 speaker cabinet in good condition and in good working order. This gorgeous pre-CBS amp features Fender’s rough blonde tolex, blonde grill cloth and the 6G7-A circuit.

This amp delivers the lovely cleans which are a hallmark of the Blonde Fender era, with a sparkle, clarity and definition unlike any amps before. But dial it up and after about 5 or 6 on the volume control, and the sparkling cleans give way to creamy tube overdrive, with wonderful harmonic content and a dynamic, touch sensitive response.

The vibrato circuit is unique to this series amp, working as more of a phaser vibrato as opposed to the Tremolo in a standard Fender. The vibrato has a nice strong pulse, with a wide range of speeds from swampy and slow to machine gun fast chop. This swirly harmonic vibrato could easily hold its own with a vintage Univibe.

The 6G7 and revised 7-A circuit uses the long-tail pair phase inverter introduced with the 1957 Bassman, and uses a solid-state rather than a tube rectifier. "Blonde" aficionados feel this circuit has superior tonal characteristics when overdriven, to the later AB763 circuit.

Features -

-Circuit: 6G7-A
-Power Output: 40 Watts
-Tubes: 6L6 (4), 12AX7 (6)
-Controls: Volume, Treble, Bass | Volume, Treble, Bass, Speed, Intensity
-Dimensions: Head - 24" x 9.5" x 8.5" | Cabinet - 32"x 20" x 11.5"

This wonderful early Blonde era Bandmaster was bought second hand by its current owner from Jackson's Rare Guitars in the mid 80's. It has been a working amp and delivered night after night for decades. But not for a while now …., so it’s time to move it on.

The 2 x 12 cabinet is in great condition. The construction is all pine, and in excellent structural condition. And the original grille cloth is intact with some small rips but nothing major.

The original speakers are long gone and replaced with 2 great sounding Jensen C12Ks in the early 2000's.

This old beauty has been recently serviced by respected amp tech Mitch Wood, and it now sounds mighty good.

All of the stock cabinet hardware is intact including pat. pending tilt back legs, corners, jack, sphinx glides and piggyback head inserts & sphinx glides. The raised "Fender" logos are also intact with very clean nickel plating. 

The blonde tolex is a little dulled in colour and marked in places, but in generally good original condition. Generally speaking, both head and cab show some honest gigging wear, with some scuffs on the tolex and nicks and marks apparent from 50+ years use.

Overall, this amp looks great, sounds great, and deserves to heard. It has lots of road miles left if needed, but would look mighty comfy in a studio setting. It will deliver everything you need for any live or recording project.