I had a really cool Blackface Deluxe Reverb, ended up in Eric Johnson's arsenal via the biggest vintage dealer in this area, RIP Mark M. of Mark's Guitars which he had started after years of managing Rock City Music, always a mecca of vintage instruments as well as a "Marshall Room".
Wish I had it now. It was "special". And factory Fender badge delete, which was a thing here and there.
I traded to get it, from the other biggest vintage dealer and curmudgeon in this area for a long time, RIP Red Bowers.
He had it, along with every other guitar and amp you could imagine, especially acoustics. A wall of vintage acoustics, I barely ever looked. If you picked up a really special Martin closest to the counter, he'd start talking about the Martin that he sold for $10k, the next guy sold it for $35k, and so forth, not a way to get him in a good mood, and he didn't have price tags on anything, all in his head, all subject to change, especially as guitars were skyrocketing in the 90's. What the point of price tags that are going up, lol? Most people said he was ornery and didn't like his lack of prices. I wish I could step back in time and visit with him now. A wall of acoustics, a wall of electrics, a wall of basses, and a wall of priceless resonators and ukes, and tenor guitars, all of his finest babies, behind the counter, which he kept a gun under like the old days.
Even most of his electrics were ES175's, 335's, Gretsches, etc.
Well he had the sweetest blackface Deluxe Reverb, '66 maybe, can't remember. And I had a really nice blonde Bassman head ('63?) that I picked up because I fell into a 1962 P Bass that had been stripped to the bare wood but otherwise 100% original as confirmed by Mark M., "down to that strap button behind the headstock, every solder joint original" for $175 at a hock shop that was mostly closed all the time, and I could see it through the window...
I managed to drive by enough times to catch the guy there one time, and he didn't even think it was a real Fender on account of having been stripped. In the blond case to boot, case looking like it had been around the world.
So I bought this "matching" Bassman head from Mark, mint, Brown face with the Cream knobs, $300.
I didn't find speakers for it, and somehow lucked into a trade where the guy had a Silverface Deluxe Reverb, and traded straight across for the Bassman head.
Then, of course, even though the Silverface Deluxe sounded amazing in every possible, I just had to go and trade it for the Blackface to Red. All it took was a visit, and some cash, and I had the Blackface.
At one point during a house move, I didn't use it for a long time. I went to show it off to a friend who was checking out the new house, and it smoked something, filter caps or some resistors, which sadly has been my experience with most Fender amps, reliability issues. So it got on a waiting list to get fixed by one of the best tube amp guys in the PNW, maybe one of the best of the best in the world, who's actually a mailman by day, or was back then, Randy Fencl. These days, he probably only does high end restos for millionaires.
So Randy fixes it, and tells Mark that this Deluxe Reverb sounds like no other. And so Mark bought it from me, sweet talked me out of it, but he was a Fender collector with every Vibrolux, and Twin and Princeton ever made and he had to have it, so I sold it to him. Then come to find out he didn't keep it and I was a little peeved, but he said that out of the blue he got a call from Eric Johnson's guitar guy who was looking for exceptional Blackface Deluxe Reverbs, and Mark just had to let it go. It was probably on his Cliffs of Dover tour, and if you've ever seen this guy play, it does make you wonder if you can sell your soul to the Devil to play, like that...
Also had a magic Fender Concert, a Tweed one somebody stripped and black tolexed, people did that back then. Or just took the black spray paint to the tweed.
I went over to some old guys's place that had a Sho-Bud pedal steel in the paper for cheap. Also turned out he had this 4x10 Fender Concert Amp, so I bought that too, $375.
Turns out these have absolutely magic "opto" something or other Tremolo circuit, quite an amp. Same circuit used in the Weber Reverberato, and others.
I had that on CL, and a guy says "would you trade for a 4 input 1975 Marshall JMP 50 head?"
I said yes, of course. $1500 head at the time. Turns out, he's a bit of a local legend, Drew M., has a Tele with a JB in the neck position that belonged to none other than Albert Collins... And there's no way he'll part with it, I tried then, and again years later, not happening.
Man he made that JMP 50 head sing like nothing I've ever heard with that guitar, and we traded.
Tuned out he had the matching cab, "both picked as a set up while on tour back east in the early 80's when the Marshall was virtually still new, with covers!
He wouldn't part with the cab, it was that good.
A couple years later, out of the blue, he calls and says I have a buddy bugging me so bad for this cab I might cave, so do you want it?
So I finally got the matching cab, and had the complete matching set until last year, when I had a selloff that allowed to buy some acoustics.
The head had been gone through by Randy, with R factory Sovtek tubes that were all the rage at the time, for a reason. It was outstanding, and that cab, never heard anything else, the sweetest breakup ever.
Even so, I still missed the Concert amp, Drew still has it, calling it his Desert Island amp.
I'm not personally a huge fan of the Rivera circuits, they have active EQ, I think... something I always found a little strange about Sound City heads, active tonestack, different from the normally passive tonestacks of Marshall and Fender heads.
