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Post by bluzman on Nov 1, 2007 18:45:24 GMT -7
I just acquired a Gibson GA-40 Les Paul amp. It has all original tubes. A few of them fell out and are in the bottom of the amp. It is a Two Tone with a black or dark brown contact type paper top going down a couple inches onto the front and sides and the rest is a varnished tweed. Both the Gibson top logo are missing and the Les Paul logo on the bottom is missing. It has a hing handle but the logo wore off, and a cover. The grill is mint. There is alot of info on this model amp, I have the serial number, the chassis says what it is but I cannot find one to properly put a print with it. I could study the print and compare... there are many prints on-line, but I want to make sure I have the proper print for this. I also want to date it... I think it's a '61 to '63 but can't find infor on dating Even with a SN. I know I can go off date codes of components but that is not always accurate.
It has a Jensen 12" Alnico in it!!
Some of the Tubes lost their labeling too... I will need to identify some of the tubes.
Any help will be greatly appreciated!!
Thanks!
PaulT
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Post by Fiestared69 on Nov 1, 2007 19:54:59 GMT -7
I've got several books on dating guitars and amps and sometimes dating the components is the only way to get a general idea of when it might have been built.
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Post by billyguitar on Nov 2, 2007 7:14:26 GMT -7
I had one like that. I think it would be a '57 give or take a bit. It should be one of the better Jensens, P12N or O. The Jensen should have a date code starting with 220. 220 is Jensen's manufacturing code. The last 2 numbers are the week it was made and the fourth number is the year. For instance 220739 would be the 39th week of 1957. it could also be 1947 or 1967 so you just have to look at the speaker and decide which decade it's from. These can be great blues amps but they are pretty loud. If you're going to play it loud I would swap the speaker so you don't blow this one. I sold mine because they will not play clean. There is always a grit to them that you can not take out. No amount of tube swapping will help either. I wrote and asked Gerald Weber about it when he had his column in Vintage Guitar. He said this amp uses a transformer for the phase inverter instead of a tube. He said that was why it wouldn't play clean. Mine was a beauty but useless to me so bye bye.
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Post by billyguitar on Nov 2, 2007 7:19:14 GMT -7
there are some odd tubes in those things but you can get them pretty easily because they aren't popular. When you nail down the year of manufacture you will easily find a tube chart for it. Groove Tubes and others have the tube list and probably a schematic and layout chart too. You might PM Myles. It sounds like it hasn't been used in years. If so, while it might come on I'm sure it would need at least new filter caps and other maintenance.
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Post by nitehawk55 on Nov 2, 2007 9:21:57 GMT -7
Dating an amp is easy , they are suckers for a box of new tubes and by the 2nd date you will have won it over completely ;D
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Post by bluzman on Nov 2, 2007 9:46:35 GMT -7
Dating an amp is easy , they are suckers for a box of new tubes and by the 2nd date you will have won it over completely ;D Yeah... buying it candy will be a little too tempting for me right now!! I've heard by the third it will really put out!
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Post by bluzman on Nov 2, 2007 9:56:28 GMT -7
Hry Bill,
Thanks for those insights. I'm gonna go out to the barn now and look the speaker over real quick. Maintenance is no problem and replacing the caps and all that I am pretty good at. Before I even plug it in, I'm taking it apart and cleaning it throughly.
One more thing, should I replace the useless power cord with a three prong and ground the he chassis? Of course the originalis two wire.
I just finished redoing a '72 Ampeg V2 for a good friend. The agreement was I would fix it for the guy and give it back, then I could buy it for 250.00 in a year, or he will give me 250.00 in a year if he wants to keep it. It only took about 7 hours and 100 bucks in parts and tubes. I was lucky it just needed all new electrolytics and some tubes. I think there were 11 tubes in that baby!
Thanks again!!
PaulT
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Post by billyguitar on Nov 2, 2007 18:38:00 GMT -7
If you want the most resale value you leave as much original as possible, including the cord. If it's in bad shape cosmetically and you want to use it then put a 3 prong on it. I think I got $750 for mine about 5 years ago but it was in great shape. One would be worth more now but I don't know how much. Maybe $1,500 if it's minty fresh. Gibsons aren't worth as much as Fenders because they generally don't sound as good although the jump blues guys like them. They also seem harder to keep running than a Fender.
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