Does This Look Like a 1960 to You?

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 3:27 pm

This is for sale locally, but there is no mention of it being a Marshall. it looks like one to me, but I'm no expert, so I'm asking those that are.

The speakers have been changed to (allegedly) 200W PA speakers of some sort, any guesses as to what brand they might be, judging by the large dust caps? The current owner says he's never had the back off of it.

TIA!

BaronGreenback · Post by **BaronGreenback** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:22 pm

looks like an old marshall to me. stripped down and painted black, so its only going to be a restoration project cab. no mega value there.

Strat78 · Post by **Strat78** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 12:48 am

Definitely an older Marshall with the piping channels. Looks really thrashed (just the kind of cab I like to restore). He's got to open her up to see what kind of bracing is on the inside. Does it have metal handles. What kind of wood is on the back, particle or Baltic Birch? At this point the speakers don't even factor in to it's value, they are worthless. If it has the vertical and horizontal bracing with a center post , offer him a couple hundred if that.

StuntDouble · Post by **StuntDouble** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 5:25 am

Those large dustcaps remind me of my G12-65's; I think those are worth quite a bit. It would be at least worth finding out what kind of speakers are in that cab. The G12-65s mix pretty well with brighter speakers; they're warm and buttery sounding.

BaronGreenback · Post by **BaronGreenback** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 6:11 pm

looks like a large logo cab to me. the 6" logo cabs usually have a slightly smaller block in the center that doesnt eat into the speaker cut outs quite as much.

also notice there is no corner logo in the top left, so could be a mid-late 70's cab. but saying that its not unusual for people to remove them when they are butchering their old marshalls.

why do people take such crap photos when selling stuff. pure laziness.

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Wed Dec 07, 2011 8:41 pm

Thanks for all the input guys! StuntDouble, great eye, you guessed the speakers exactly! The rest of the info didn't help, but that's certainly not the fault of the ones giving it. Read on!

I went to look at it today, and the first thing I checked was to see if it was metal or plastic handles. It was neither, with no sign of a hole ever having been there for them, and all it had was cheap hardware store handles screwed onto it. I looked for an amp tray, and there wasn't one of those either.

I was bummed that it wasn't a Marshall, but it was really well built, the dimensions were right, it was Baltic birch, in better shape than it looked in the picture he had, and it was cheap! I didn't have much time, and I was afraid that if I had him take the back off and the speakers were better than he thought, the price would skyrocket, so I took a chance and offered him a bit less than he was asking for it. He jumped at it, (damn!) and I took it home, not knowing for sure what I had.

Pulled the back off, and wasn't too surprised to see it was BB, (I plan to use it for some copies I'm making too) and noticed that the speakers were much better than I expected, but I was really surprised to see that it had a large sound post, with correct looking rubber, and the long vertical upright! The number 2073 is written in marker on the back and one side of the cab. I did some looking here,

http://www.marstran.com/cabdata/cabdata.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and it seems to indicate that this could be a 65 to 67 top handle cab. The speakers have obviously been changed, as have most of the screws, but there ARE 4 holes with t nuts in the top of the cab where I'm guessing the original handles would have been. (Not sure, I never seen a pic of one before.)

Any suggestions on how I can figure out if it's real or not? It's really starting to look like it to me, but I really don't believe it.

Thanks again for all the ID help!

jape88 · Post by **jape88** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 3:56 am

Wattever wrote: Any suggestions on how I can figure out if it's real or not? It's really starting to look like it to me, but I really don't believe it.

It's really hard to give any help or info without good pics to look at

The 4 internal fixings would put it as a top handle, nice find, do we get to find out how much greenback was parted with to make us all 'green'

.

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:23 am

jape88 wrote:
It's really hard to give any help or info without good pics to look at

The 4 internal fixings would put it as a top handle, nice find, do we get to find out how much greenback was parted with to make us all 'green' .

I'll try to post some pics as soon as i get some coffee into me. Anything specific you'd like to see.

He was asking $150 OBO so I offered him $125 CAD and he jumped on it. The ad had been up for a week and almost 200 people had clicked on it, but I guess no-one else was interested.

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 9:21 am

Here are a couple quick pics. Not sure what's up with the terminal strips. They weren't connected to anything when I took the back off. I cut out the wiring (it was a mess) to check the voice coil impedances.

I'll try to get some better pics of the T nuts once I get it all stripped down.

BaronGreenback · Post by **BaronGreenback** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 10:05 am

nice score! trust me those are very rare to find without the sides hacked for handles. get it restored properly and you will have an awesome cabinet.

If 2045 is the serial it could well be a mid - late 65, but usually in 65 the center brace is slightly smaller and the speaker baffle is missing the horizontal piece of pine.

Assuming the top left corner triangle hasnt been removed at some point, that is also an early feature. I think they only started fitting those around mid 66 when the first 'bass' and '100' logo cabs got made.

the script logo is usually fitted slightly higher on those early cabs too. not on the centre line. so have a look where the holes have been drilled for the logo.

also look at the angle of the cut where the baffle goes in (inside rear side pieces of pine). it is usually a shorter cut on the early cabs. i think the longer cut came around late 66 or early 67.

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 2:22 pm

Here's a pic of the baffle clearance angle cuts and the logo pin locations. The tip of the cuts measure 4” down from the inside of the cab top. (Not the real baffle support.) There is no sign of a corner triangle ever having been on the front.

A few other unusual things I've noticed are that the grill cloth and logo spacers all appear to be BB and not particle board, and they are stapled on, but the rear baffle mounting strips, and the front filler strips are all attached with finishing nails. There are no holes for caster cups, and no corner triangles or bottom filler strips that they added to accommodate them.

The bad news is that the two lower speakers have some physical cone damage that has been poorly repaired. Next step is to give it a quick re-wire and see how the speakers sound, before pulling them and the baffle out. I've never seen it done, but I wonder if it's possible to replace just a cone and dust cap in a case of physical damage if the voice coil and spider are both still OK?

It's beginning to look a lot like my plan to buy a cheap POS cab and have a fun, relaxing time restoring it has gone terribly awry.

Gonna have to be VERY careful and kick it up a notch or 10! Anybody got a spare yard of EC BB grill cloth they'd like to donate to the cause!

BaronGreenback · Post by **BaronGreenback** » Thu Dec 08, 2011 3:26 pm

interesting. i would have said it was a 67 or perhaps very late 66 going from those last two shots. the logo is near enough in the usual place and the angle of the cut is the normal, later style. I doubt the 2075 is the serial number if that is the case. maybe that number has some other meaning to a previous owner.

are you sure the corner triangle hasnt gone missing in action? can you take a pic of that area? top left of the baffle. usually they were stapled on. kind of hard to find evidence it was ever there but there might be staple holes etc. or perhaps drill holes from the 100 or bass logo if it ever had one.

there wouldnt have been any extra bracing on the inside bottom of the cab, because they didnt come with castors, only small metal dome feet.

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 9:29 am

Here's a pic of the top left corner. I checked the area with a million candlepower spot light, and picked at any imperfection that could possibly be a staple hole and didn't find any evidence of there ever being a corner triangle there.

Not sure what the number is, but it's written on both the back panel and the side. (as pictured)

Without the original speakers, or ID tag, I'll probably never know exactly what year it is, but it's definitely old enough to be a big PITA to restore. Any suggestions on where to get the oddball parts it had like the handles and feet? Personally, I'm not into having it perfectly vintage correct, with all NOS parts etc., but I will be trying to make sure that I don't do anything that will make it harder for anyone who might own it in the future to go that route if they want to.

I did a quick re-wire on it last night and gave it a test run, and all of the speakers are working with no apparent coil rub. If it wasn't for the 2 damaged cones, they would be fine for me.

I'll pull the speakers and baffle board today, and see what I find there. Would be nice if there was a bit of original grill cloth somewhere, but I have my doubts.

BaronGreenback · Post by **BaronGreenback** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:14 pm

I think 66 - 67 is a fairly safe bet on that cab. cabs from 65 are usually made slightly differently as I mentioned earlier. the handles & metal feet from that period are near impossible to find. MG sell repro handles but you might want to relic them a bit.

one more thing to look at is the corner joints in the wood. finger joints would be another feature found on a cab from 67 onwards... the earlier cabs from 66 and previous are usually simple butt joints.

finger joints:

Wattever · Post by **Wattever** » Fri Dec 09, 2011 5:41 pm

First to correct an earlier observation, I thought the grill cloth spacers were all 1/2” thick BB ply, but now that I have the baffle out of the cab I can see that only the cross brace directly under the logo block is BB, the rest, including the one directly under it, are all made of ½” by ¾” pine. The very top one is angled to match the top of the baffle, so while it's ¾ wide where it's attached to the baffle, it's closer to ½ where it would contact the grill cloth.

The only grill cloth remaining were a few confetti sized pieces under some of the original staples, but they're big enough that I can tell that the grill cloth was originally Blues Breaker/ Pinstripe. There were also a few approx. 1” square bits of the original tolex and some of the channel piping remaining too.

The corners are identical to the modern cabs, ¼” finger joints.

The top handle holes measure 6 7/8 center to center on one side, and 6 ¾ on the other. (It MUST be a Marshall!)

All I've been able to find so far on the handles is that they were probably leather and a few distant pics that don't show much at all. I have no idea what the feet looked like. If I did, I could probably find something very close, or get a set made.

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