The $105 Bassman Cometh

One of the things that I've wanted for a while is a Bassman head that I could keep and love, but was not so expensive as to compel me to sell it for a profit, or that I might be pilloried by the Vintage Amp Police for having a little fun with it.

Let me back up a bit....there's more to this story.

I was at an auction late last year and I picked up a Teisco Del Rey solid body guitar like this one on the cheap-fifty two dollars to be exact. It was covered in sticky schmutz and looked like a wall hanger in a ginmill or somebody's so called "man cave".

Not that I wanted it, mind you, but I figured it would be a good money maker.  So I cleaned it up a bit and put it on Craigslist with a notation that I would trade it for a dead tube amp.

So a pal of mine calls up and says he's got an amp and let's trade for your guitar. What I ended up with was the Sound City 120 head you see here. It was dead but about fifteen minutes of work got it running well enough. Large and powerful, but not my cup of tea as they say. Then, I posted a pic of it on one of my internet hangouts offering to trade it for a Fender Bassman.

Within ten minutes I had been offered a Bassman 70, which is an ultralinear amp which I did not want, and a Bassman 50, which is pretty much the same as an AB165 Bassman, which I did. An agreement was made.

Shipping the Sound City to San Angelo Texas ran me about fifty three dollars, and the Bassman arrived on the return. So I'd gotten myself a silverface Bassman for a total of $105.

I just started improving it the other day. It needed a good crud cleaning which I am about half finished with, and I ditched all the blue Paktron capacitors for Mojotone Dijons-a great improvement. The power supply capacitors had already been replaced.

Right now it works pretty well and sounds as you would expect a Bassman to sound. I'm thinking a custom cabinet with a single 12 inch speaker or a couple 10s would be.