Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by 62sg » Sun May 24, 2009 4:57 am

shakti wrote:
62sg wrote: Likely so. Looking at the sample next to the headcab, you can see the headcab is much "blacker"....possibly making the sample appear differently.

Here's one that I did a ways back with O.M. tolex...and I have had many people contact me to ask if it is covered with 'reissue old black with green hue'. It is not. I did this in O.M. tolex. I know of no accurate reissue with the hue.

http://www.stoneagecustomcabinets.com/u ... p_view.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you zoom in on this image, you'll notice a false hue. Weird, but it's there.
Just to clarify this, by O.M., do you mean original Marshall tolex?



Yes.
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by mwm523 » Sun May 24, 2009 8:44 am

Does Metro even get their cabs from Mojo anymore? The new smallbox I got from George is different than the other two I've gotten from him in the past. The older ones had rounded top corners in the front cutout and a rounded bottom lip, while the new one has nice square corners in the cutout and a flat lip. The tolex is different too. I like the new cab much better.
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by shakti » Sun May 24, 2009 9:19 am

George will have to answer that one, but I think they're still from Mojo. They're speced a little differently though, as you say they now have a flat front lip and more correct faceplate cutout. They look much, much better than the older ones, but I still don't like the tolex all that much.
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by 908ssp » Sun May 24, 2009 10:39 am

I'll concur that in my experience all the old original Marshall cabs just aren't as black as the modern aftermarket stuff. I have 8 pieces all before 72 and there is at least three colors. I have a 70 4x12 sitting next to a 72 4x12 but no picture and the 70 has a greenish tint next to the blacker 72 and the 66 head sitting on top of the 70 cab is blueish with the cracks being bluer than the pebbles. The one thing that is very consistent is that the pebble grain is flat and not rounded like the current stuff.

It may be that we're are being confused by inadequate language to cover what we're seeing. The only cab I have that really looks like the word "wash" makes any sense is the 66. Like I said it appears blueish in the cracks and black on top of the pebbles. All my other cabs while not being the same color appear a uniform solid color. That color varies some it appears greenish sitting next to other cabs that appear black, set those old black cabs against a modern black and they appear faded or very dark gray.

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by VintageCharlie » Tue Jun 22, 2010 9:18 am

If somebody is interested in the real Marshall Levant with the greenish hue (that really is visible only under specific light conditions or when there's a specific angle to the lighting), then AES still seems to have the same stuff Shakti talked about a while back. I just got a sample of it and compared it to my 2x12 cab covered in a Marshall black levant repro, that doesn't have this hue. In most situations theu both look very similar or simply black, but with flsh and the right angle the greenish hue comes out on the real Marshall levant. Though the difference is not nearly as huge as with the pictures that Shakti posted. Don't know - maybe it's a tad different than it used to be. The slight greenish hue is still there though.

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by BaronGreenback » Tue Jun 22, 2010 12:53 pm

ive owned quite a few different basketweave cabs in my time and all of them have had the greenish coloured tolex on them. but green to varying degrees. my theory is that different tolex from different suppliers looked the same when first installed, close to black, but over time has aged differently. one of my cabs has green sides and darker tolex on the top and bottom. i doubt it looked like that when new, and it hasnt been re-tolexed.

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by shakti » Tue Jun 22, 2010 1:14 pm

Yeah, I think it's about the same situation as with the basketweave grille - if you look along the baffle edges, they are all invariably BLACK and WHITE, but the front has often faded to an almost uniform brownish hue. The tolex was probably more or less black or charcoal originally, but with time it shows varying degress of fading, which reveals hues that in some types of light comes across as green (or in the case of '66-'67 cabs, almost blue).
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by BaronGreenback » Tue Jun 22, 2010 1:39 pm

weren't the pinstripe era cabs 'black on green' like this stuff...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Marshall-Amp-Spar ... 588692a0a1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

with the raised area being black and the background or 'cracks' being green?

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by somethin'else » Tue Jun 22, 2010 10:42 pm

weren't the pinstripe era cabs 'black on green' like this stuff...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Marshall-Amp-Spar" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... 588692a0a1

with the raised area being black and the background or 'cracks' being green?
That stuff is def'ly GREEN, and they say in the listing that it's "greener than the pic" :shock: Pretty green, like what some call Emerald Green or British Racing Green?

I too got a swatch of Marshall black(greenish black) from AES, and held it up to a schwag of Marshall green/black left over from Swanson, and they were close... very close. Both texture and backside weave were VERY close. BUT, I have to say, Jeff's stuff had that "Green background with Black tops o' the nubbies thing", which put it out front in the taste test. But even THAT was REALLY hard to pick up on. I stared so hard at 'em to differentiate, I thought I was shroomin'! :lol: The Swanson's in the foreground, and the AES swatch behind it.

Image
Image

And then, when I dragged my rig outside, BLAMMO! The color blew up in the natural sunlight. I said, "Awww..." See comparison of the Metro 12 Series/Mojo head and AES tolex, and then the SAME cab in more 'controlled' light. The pic on the right is more of what you might see in most settings. Great either way, imho.

Image
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by VintageCharlie » Wed Jun 23, 2010 2:49 am

Yes, flash and sunlight bring out the green. But i couldn't find an angle how to make the sample from AES nearly as green as the stuff (the same stuff from AES but from an earlier batch) that Shakti had pictured. somethin'else, thanks for the pics - i thought it was the same as waht Swanson uses. But i didn't really understand what exactly is different from your post - this part: "Black tops o' the nubbies thing". I remember reading that vintage Levant has a flatter texture than modern repro - do you refer to this? Does the stuff Swanson uses have the more flattened texture?

THanks!

Regards,

VintageCharlie

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by 908ssp » Wed Jun 23, 2010 8:44 am

You really have two discussions going on here. One about real vintage levant and one about modern reproduction stuff. I have seen all of the examples of modern levant and none of it looks like the vintage stuff. The bright green and black stuff isn't even close and the dark black stuff is too dark. I think what Jim said the stuff you buy from Marshall is the closest. None of the levants have the flat texture of the old cabs.

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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by somethin'else » Wed Jun 23, 2010 9:49 am

Unfortunately, it's been a decade or more since I rubbed up on some vintage cabs. The Swanson and AES is the same texture, and pattern, or super duper close. I dunno, like Alex said, words can get in the way here! Maybe I spoke too quickly without explanation, and explanation is weirdly hard to find! :lol: But I'll try, the "Black on top of the nubbies" looks like greenish black tolex - as the base color, and then on the highest relief, appears to be 'rubbed' black. They're like dots... so two colors are actually going on. Hard to describe, hard to capture in pics. :roll:

In my pics, it's a Mojo head box sitting on my cab, recovered in AES, in the sunlight. And then to the right, the same cab in shady light. Pretty extreme color shifts right there.

And on texture, I think the pics by all show that the modern stuff isn't near as smooth (flat) as the authentic vintage stuff.
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Re: Marshall "green wash" tolex - which period?

Post by vintmodJCM » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:26 pm

I have an early '69 1960B basketweave that most certainly has a very cool green tint to the Tolex. This is in line with the type of colorization & fading experienced by mid-80s JCMs, whose elephant Tolex tends to become bluefish-green while the black grillcloth fades inconsistently to reddish, purplish or blue-grayish hues. All of this was "fixed" in '87.

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