Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[neikeel]

If it was for 69 then it would have been SL/A 10047 wouldn't it?
SL10047 would be a late 67 or very early 68 (I had two in the 10500 range both from early 68) and probably of the reverse JTM black flag era.
I defer to Tazin on that tho'.

Sorry this reply was to the original comment re that amp (odd because the update posts did not appear before I typed it)
Weird

[Tazin]

If it was for 69 then it would have been SL/A 10047 wouldn't it?
SL10047 would be a late 67 or very early 68 (I had two in the 10500 range both from early 68) and probably of the reverse JTM black flag era.
I defer to Tazin on that tho'.

Sorry this reply was to the original comment re that amp (odd because the update posts did not appear before I typed it)
Weird

The SL/A prefix does denote 1969 onwards. The SL/ prefix is basically from early 1967 (black flag era) through 1968 although there are some stragglers in early 1969 seen with 12series serials.

[daveweyer]

It makes you wonder if the persons who built this fake amp came across an old '67 with the serial# SL10047, and decided since there was a Jimi amp listed as 10047 that they could just find a '69 model and use the old '67 back panel on it. The only discrepancy would be the missing /A on the serial number, and with all the confusion around Marshall amps at this time, nobody would take it too seriously.
The biggest risk would be that somebody might come forward with the real SL/A 10047. Perhaps they knew that amp #SL/A 10047 had been destroyed, making it seem like a risk free way to scam some bucks. Of course they didn't know about Tazin's documentation. One needs be very cautious about presenting gear as authentic Hendrix.

[Tazin]

That very well could have been the case in this scenerio. One thing that doesn't sit well with me regarding the 10047 rear panel is how close the serial number is to the forward slash "/". Most panels have more distance there.

[Mr.Glenny]

Hello guys!!!
I'm Glen and I write from italy ...
Thank Dave and all those who helped make this forum great !!!you are fantastic!!!

I do not know if it can be useful but I found information on a jimi amp that is in Switzerland .... sl / a 10590 ... it has the west coast sticker and when it was purchased in 1974 it still had the original 6550s !!!! then unfortunately it was profanated with el34 by the new owner ....

I have some photos but I can not upload them to the forum .... please I ask Xplorer if he can contact me to send him the photos ( 69heyjoe@libero.it ).... (sorry for the bad english but I use a translator ...) .
Greetings to all!!!!
Glen

[Xplorer]

Hello guys!!!
I'm Glen and I write from italy ...
Thank Dave and all those who helped make this forum great !!!you are fantastic!!!

I do not know if it can be useful but I found information on a jimi amp that is in Switzerland .... sl / a 10590 ... it has the west coast sticker and when it was purchased in 1974 it still had the original 6550s !!!! then unfortunately it was profanated with el34 by the new owner ....

I have some photos but I can not upload them to the forum .... please I ask Xplorer if he can contact me to send him the photos ( 69heyjoe@libero.it ).... (sorry for the bad english but I use a translator ...) .
Greetings to all!!!!
Glen

Absolutely fantastic !!!!! Yes sure, i'll post the pictures with pleasure ! Thanks a ton !

[Tazin]

Hello guys!!!
I'm Glen and I write from italy ...
Thank Dave and all those who helped make this forum great !!!you are fantastic!!!

I do not know if it can be useful but I found information on a jimi amp that is in Switzerland .... sl / a 10590 ... it has the west coast sticker and when it was purchased in 1974 it still had the original 6550s !!!! then unfortunately it was profanated with el34 by the new owner ....

I have some photos but I can not upload them to the forum .... please I ask Xplorer if he can contact me to send him the photos ( 69heyjoe@libero.it ).... (sorry for the bad english but I use a translator ...) .
Greetings to all!!!!
Glen

I would suggest that you make sure that the owner of the amp is ok with you posting pictures of his/her amp unless the pictures were posted on a public forum by the owner.

[Xplorer]

Apparently, these pictures were posted on Facebook so it seems to be ok.

Now wait ..... Wow !!! A Hendrix amp that looks legit, with Dave's mod, 6550 !!!!
Happy Dave ? he he, that's so cool, what do you guys think ?

https://imgur.com/a/7HrXI

[daveweyer]

Well, I figured a pic of one of Jimi's amps would show up one day or another and verify the use of 6550s. Glad to see they were Tung Sol valves as well, since those were the very best ones we could find; they obviously held up for a long time (I sent Bill Bokey one of those Tung Sol valves from Jimi's amp). I wish there had been more on the internal mods; somebody at Marshall must have noticed the shared cathode arrangement and the 12AT7 phase inverter. And as far as desensitizing the inputs go, we didn't go for that because we wanted to overload the inputs; the whole point of my discussions with Jimi as far as evolving his sound, was to use less fuzz and more input overdrive. And he did that, the results are plain to hear in BOG stuff, like the Fillmore East in Dec '69.
Maybe this info finally solves the argument over those tubes seen from backstage at Woodstock, and which we went over and over earlier in this topic (to some degree of heat I might add).
Thanks again for sharing this info; there is a lot more out there, but folks are very reluctant to expose their prize possessions on public forums, so this info is really great.
Next: photos of Jimi's earlier Strats with the neck notches please!

[daveweyer]

Now after thinking about it for a couple hours, let me pose a rhetorical question: If you had found an amp of Jimi's that you could verify, and saw that it had a number of big and small mods inside, why in hell would you take them out and put it back to stock so that you really didn't have an authentic Jimi amp anymore??????? This just gets me, I don't understand why anyone with any functioning brain cells would change it from what Jimi played through, to something he didn't play through!!
Does this not register with musicians?
I give it all over to you to answer:

[niknik]

Wow,
Nice shot Glen, friend of mine!
I read correctly? This amp was played in the woodstock concert, and also in BOG shows?
So it was the same amp?
Really really nice, now it is time for me to try to build the 3 transistors FF!
And rock'n'roll!

[Xplorer]

Now after thinking about it for a couple hours, let me pose a rhetorical question: If you had found an amp of Jimi's that you could verify, and saw that it had a number of big and small mods inside, why in hell would you take them out and put it back to stock so that you really didn't have an authentic Jimi amp anymore??????? This just gets me, I don't understand why anyone with any functioning brain cells would change it from what Jimi played through, to something he didn't play through!!
Does this not register with musicians?
I give it all over to you to answer:

i Wondered too .... often.
we don't have pictures of the Inside of this amp, and i'm suspecting that it's been "reversed back to normal" when the owner brought it to marshall or to a workshop, i don't remember, i still didn't read all in detail. we know anyway that it's got back to el 34 .....

Now, from the supposed Hendrix blackflag i saw, ( heavily hacked, orange drop caps ... but still the 2k2 10 watts on the screens ... ) , from the other Hendrix amps seen here and there, with el34 now ... it seems that there was this wierd and silly trend to "restore the amp back to the normal values" ... and there you lose everything about jimi ...
But some may be intact ...
Maybe back when these "restorations" were made, there wasn't this interest that we have today about jimi's tone, and what's involved electronicaly. So peoples maybe just didn't realize and as long as there was the J.H.EXP stencils on the box .... it was jimi's amp, wether it was stock or restored.

one possibility also may be that seing your WC mod, they thought that it had been hacked, and it had to be restored to the normal Hendrix specs, which they thought had to be the standard values ??

[Tazin]

In the case of amp SL/A10590 the amp is in the same state electroniclly as it was when Hendrix used it.

[daveweyer]

I take it you mean that they left the mods intact, or did I misread what you meant?

[Tazin]

I take it you mean that they left the mods intact, or did I misread what you meant?

All mods are intact...But there really isn't any major modifications to speak of. Nothing along the lines of the major modifications you have mentioned earlier in this thread.