Gibson GA20T Ranger on the bay

BluesDan

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For those who were not following a rather nice thread veer that the Cap and I had going in the Ebay section......I think the original thread was about a guitar....here is the link to the amp being discussed:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT
( someone needs to show me how to do that one word / link thing that you guys do so well)

As you can see, the seller posted just a rear view, nothing more. I requested and received additional photos of the front and chassis interior. Seller sent a brief note with the pics, he's definitely a player and not an amp guru, which is fine, neither am I. The seller's name is Kris, seems eager to answer any questions to the best of his ability. Here are the pics, as you can see it is the super rare GibsoR version........ :wink:
gibson20amp201.jpg

gibson20amp20inside-back.jpg


Dan
 

capnjuan

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Hi Dan: the speaker is a mid-60s Jensen Syntox ceramic ... original equipment on many Guild Thunderbirds ... not original but if in good condition, not necessarily negative. Bottom mold stains and partly missing logo par for the course. They didn't punch the chassis for the bottom of the power transformer; drilled/grommeted holes for the primary and secondaries. It has fresh power supply caps; the black/blue cylinders on the left ... should be one more lurking around and there's a newer electrolytic ... the yellow cylinder in the middle of the circuit board. The two lumpy red/brown output tube coupling caps at the left end of the board ... if not original, are period-correct Gibson 'chocolate drops'. The one tube without a cover never had one; it's an 'octal' ... tube with a base as large as the bases of the rectifier and power tubes. It's the tremolo tube ... that's all it does ... lots of them around.


There is one Seth Lover Surprise with this amp and the GA40; the caps for the tremolo, low frequency oscillation-damping R/C filter, and other odds and ends are on the underside the board ... yes! That's right ... on the underside where no stinking commie pinko cap thieves can get their mitts on them. :wink: If the trem fails which is pretty common for an amp this old, it's nearly always a faulty cap but to get at all, five controls and the four jacks have to be loosened, dropped out of the control panel, and the circuit board flipped over. Adds charm if it's your amp ... :) adds nuisance and bench cost of fix if not. :evil: Except for the notes, pretty clean ... not a collector piece but in reasonably good condition. John

See if this will help reduce the length of URLs:

Copy the entire auction URL to the clipboard:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT
Click on: the 'URL' button above the drafting window and you get:
Paste the entire URL between the two symbols:
[ur] http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT][/url]
Change the first highlighted close URL bracket to a '=' and add another close bracket as indicated by the bold above.
Looks like: [url = http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT]......[/url] Type whatever text you want to appear where the dots are and it will come out

Gibson GA20T on eBay
 

capnjuan

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Fingers crossed .... :D
 

capnjuan

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Sheesh; they're coming out of the woodwork ... anudder very clean Gibson GA20T Standard preamp, very clean, fresh ps caps ... and one of the very rare mold-free models.

GA20TC.jpg
 
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Sheesh; they're coming out of the woodwork

And what the heck is it doing in Wrangell, AK? That's a tiny town on a panhandle island. Sometimes I wonder how vintage stuff ends up where it does, but I suppose ebay has eased cross-country commerce.
 

capnjuan

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Guild Beginner said:
Sheesh; they're coming out of the woodwork
And what the heck is it doing in Wrangell, AK? That's a tiny town on a panhandle island. Sometimes I wonder how vintage stuff ends up where it does, but I suppose ebay has eased cross-country commerce.
Hi Caleb: ... yes, the good, bad, and the ugly about eBay. Anyone anywhere can throw up something. Not having seen any for months last year, I bought two of these off eBay within 4 weeks. I could have looked all over FL for years and not found one.

And yes, even someone holding a vgc piece of vintage electronics in East Podunk has an alternative between letting it go for peanuts at a church charity auction and going to Chicago making the rounds of the boutique music stores trying to get a good price for it. Seems like it's all good until we consider the consequences on the Ma Pa music shops ... hit the same way by eBay as small town retailers hit by WalMart and the other big-box retailers. Anyway, this one is about as clean as the come; not even the bottom is stained. John
 

leonc

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Any feel for amount of clean headroom on these? I assume it's something less than say a Fender Deluxe Reverb, yes?
 

capnjuan

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Hi Leon; yes, less than a Deluxe but the later 6EU7-driven version of this amp is louder and cleaner. The standard version has a 12AY7 in the channel 1 preamp with a 10meg grid leak (?) R and capacitor input - it was intended for mics. Since the two Ch 1 jacks independently feed each 1/2 of the 12AY7, the channel doesn't have a lot of gain and the way the front end is set up, it gives it up pretty quick.
 

Brad Little

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I had one of these once. I bought it and a Hagstrom II electric guitar for $100 in 1966. I guess I still own the amp-I was moving back to Connecticut in the early 70s and didn't have room for this or a National Electric and leant them to a friend, unfortunately I never had the chance to go back and get them. C'est la vie. :(
Brad
 

capnjuan

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Hi Brad; the GA20T is pretty much a Poor Man's GA40LP; single / not twin 5879s, no choke in the power supply, smaller OT, and the volume control is with the tone stack, not PPI like the GA40. But they are one of the few production amps from the era with a pentode in the preamp. I bypassed the R/C filter mentioned above in channel 2 and get a wilder, much edgier version of Gibson's warm, fat tone.
 

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capnjuan said:
Hi Brad; the GA20T is pretty much a Poor Man's GA40LP; single / not twin 5879s, no choke in the power supply, smaller OT, and the volume control is with the tone stack, not PPI like the GA40. But they are one of the few production amps from the era with a pentode in the preamp. I bypassed the R/C filter mentioned above in channel 2 and get a wilder, much edgier version of Gibson's warm, fat tone.


Frickin' awesome amp, BTW. Sounds GREAT at every volume.
 
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