$200K 1963 JTM45 One Of 6 Prototypes

[stickyfinger]

He's hoping some rich famous guitar rocker with money to blow wants to add this to their collection. Maybe, but likely at a lower price. Trainwrecks sell for 50k to these guys but eventually most get sold again.

 

[Derrick111]

The 500k fugazi Explorer he had on his wall tells you all you need to know about his interest in anything electric.,

What is a fugazi Explorer? As in the band Fugazi?

BTW, that is one sloppy cap job and I would expect a very clean job as a bare minimum at the higher end of pricing, let alone $200k.

I do wholeheartedly disagree with a post made earlier that any clone with Mercury Magnetics transformers will sound like a 60s original in a blind test. MM transformers are well built, but very "clinical" sounding where as the originals are very "organic". Possibly with Merren or Pacific Transformer iron, but not MM.

 

[StingRay85]

Orange drops in the PI

 

[London John]

What is a fugazi Explorer? As in the band Fugazi?

Guitar, very long and tragic tale of tawdry lies and greed. He was conned, but he took the bait until put straight by well wishes.

 

[NickKUK]

Here are the screenshots:



I don't know much about this era, but a couple of things stand out immediately:
- The PI layout looks wrong for 7 turret-wide board. Likely cut down from an 8 turret board (as MG were known to do).
- The yellow/blue Dubilier caps are anachronistic (should be grey RS PIO).

Resistors look too new for a 1970s build. I'd expect carbon comp that is sharp cornered. Especially if it's on the cheap and using older 50/60 stock being sold on the cheap.

Also very clean.. very clean. Both in terms of dust, solder oxidisation and metal patina/rust. It's like it's had a serious service - ie someone has gone through the old resistors and replace them and possibly the chassis itself. The silicon wonder seems like a real bodge service. The volume knob wiring and soldering etc looks period.

This is 6 years earlier (1957), where I don't expect it to be this bad in terms of dust, I would expect a level of level of patina/oxidisation of metal for people that have essentially DIY'd without plating technology to protect it:


Only other question I have is the power - for 1963 in the UK there would not be a need for parity. 1963 UK mains sockets for UK market (unless they were intended for the US market) would have had a 3 pin UK plug without the ability to reverse polarity.

Now if this was a production prototype was it for the US rather than UK first? Typically you'd get the UK market out, sell the amps and then worry about retrofitting - this would get your money in first.