TRANSITION PERIOD AMPS... ALL THE TONE WITHOUT THE PRICE TAG

The Fender Amp Field guide marks January of 1965 as the month Leo Fender sold his company Fender Electric Instruments Co to CBS who renamed the company Fender Musical Instruments. The changes made to Fender products are decidedly for the worse and pre-CBS construction methods have become a prime factor in the desirability of vintage Fender amps. The good news for the player lies in the fact that CBS was slow to modify the production of most of the Fender line and so a transition period occurs where amps with the new "silver face" cosmetics still retained the old "black face circuits" (black vs. silver face refers to the color of the control face plate, pre-CBS amps had black face plates, CBS used silver face plates until returning to black plates in the 1980's). Then end result is the ability, with a little knowledge, to find an original black face circuit without paying the collectors price for black face cosmetics. While many amp techs can convert 70's silver face amps back to black face specs, there is some argument over the desirability of a rebuilt circuit versus an all original circuit.

For the Super Reverb, 1967-1969 marks the transition period in manufacture and can be identified by an aluminum frame forming a border around the grill cloth. Some of these amps contain the old black face circuit while others do not. Opening up the amp makes it relatively simple to tell which circuit is present. The most immediate change CBS made was the addition of large ceramic resistors on the capacitors. If there are no large resistors, the tube chart is marked AB763 and the amp was produced in 1967-1968 then you more than likely have a black face circuit.

This is the case with the 1968 Super Reverb we have for sale here at Empire Guitars. Clean and loud all the way up, this amp pushes plenty of air from 4x10" speakers. Great sounding reverb and tremolo are engaged by the original footswitch. Comes with gliding wheels and 19" tilt back legs. $1500