Price check: original 5F6-A chassis

[bluesbreaker59]

So I found an original tweed Bassman chassis. The gentleman is willing to sell it to me and says it is the chassis only, no speakers or cabinet. He claims that everything is there, including the original transformers. He's not sure if it works or not and can't test it. He says it does have some rust.

I'm guessing it'll need a full restoration / cleanup. I figured I'd send it to Mark Baier for that. So that's probably $250-400 depending on condition. A new Mojotone cab is around $260 and speakers are probably going to be $300 or more.

So what's the chassis worth? He is a friend and I do not want to "steal it" or "screw him". I want to pay a fair amount.

 

[guitarman_1]

You may not like the answer, but if the chassis is all there and the trannies are good, $1500+ is a good starting point.

 

[bluesbreaker59]

That is a little spicy. He said, whatever I find that they're going for online (none for sale right now), he would sell it to me for way less than half of that.

 

[smiert spionam]

One thing to keep in mind: very rarely would someone pull a good working chassis and set it aside. I would assume it has one or more blown transformers, and that it needs other electronic work and new tubes.

 

[bluesbreaker59]

I think this one was rescued from a damaged cab, but not totally sure right now.

 

[Oatie]

I have an original Bassman Cab from 1959 with a
perfect tube chart. The cab was re-covered by Greg Hopkins
at Vintage Amp Restoration.

Find out what year the chassis is from.

 

[bluesbreaker59]

I will certainly let you know as soon as I see it. Are you wanting to sell the old cab? Speakers?

 

[bluesbreaker59]

Bump

 

[bluesbreaker59]

Has no one ever found an old Fender amp chassis only? I thought a few guys would've found various amps in this condition from time to time and then restored them.

 

[soldersucker]

Hell yeah we've found them! last October i saw an online add for a couple old amps in someones basement 50$.
One was a POS older Canadian brand and the other was a 59 Super 5F4 cobbled into a fender blackface headbox.
I immediately saw it for what it was and though 150 miles away had a good friend go over and grab it.
It works perfectly after a little TLC and a new Rodgers cab.
Go for it but friend or not it's business don't pay an arm and a leg he's too lazy to do the leg work so why should you?It's going to cost X over and above and your taking the risk.

 

[CaptRKirkB]

Yes I have done this as well. A couple of years ago I found a Tweed Pro Chassis stuck in a crappy head cab on Craigs List for $500. I ran right over to check it out and found it was sort of sealed in its head case so I couldn't see the guts. The kid says it's been recapped and it sounds like like a tweed so I take a shot and offer him $400 and he says fine.
Now I originally wanted to rehab it with a vintage cab and spent the next year searching for one with no luck. I was just about to pull the trigger on a new repro cab when low and behold I see an ad on CL that says "53 Tweed Pro Cab no chassis".
I just about creamed my jeans when I saw it right here in town. Well I couldn't get over there fast enough and bought it on the spot. But looking at it I realized it had a different cutout size. He swore it was a Pro cab and he used to have the amp too but left it with someone in CA. 20 yrs ago. The cab had all original Tweed and some provenance on the inside mentioning a country band from the 60's. although it was a little beat up still good for 60 yrs old. I believed it to be a Bassman cab, without a tube chart its hard to tell. Any way I spent another 8-10 months searching for a vintage chassis to put in the cab and finally gave up on that and decided to go ahead and put my Pro into it.
Now I have already been flamed on this before so I can take it. haha
Yes I had my Cabinet guy ( a very good spkr cab builder here in the PDX metro area named Lynn Axtell,you can google him) take the Tweed cab and peel back the Tweed and redo the chassis cutout to fit my Pro then re-glue the Tweed and Viola I have an "almost real" Vintage 52' Tweed Pro Wide panel.
Now obviously this isn't as real as the real thing but it's damn close and truly all vintage. So I am very happy to get a "Players" Pro

as always YMMV etc.

peace Kirk

 

[CaptRKirkB]

Oh and also I have just $650 total in it so far. I may have to have a little work done down the line but nothing major.
I think this would easly sell in the $1500-$2000 range so I think it was a great investment not to mention it sounds freaking awesome!

 

[bluesbreaker59]

Thank you for the replies so far. I found one closed auction where one that was serviced sold for $1200. I will have no way to test this when I go look at it. So basically if the numbers are right, and there are Astron caps and the right amount of tube sockets and controls, I'll probably try to make an offer. I want to get it for under $600, that way I can afford to pay a tech, like Mark Baier, to restore it. Then I'll hunt for a cab and try to figure out speakers. Thus far I'm not a big fan of Webers. I just had a couple of their 10A125's and thought they were loud, lifeless and dull.

I really like the Jensen P10R reissues (after break in) but I wished they were a little louder. Thinking about their P10Q, but their sensitivity is the same as the P10R.