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Amp Auction: VINTAGE AIRLINE TUBE GUITAR/BASS AMP VALCO/SUPRO/SILVERTONE 1485

Amp Auction Description: RARE Tube Airline 9171A head by Supro/Valcoa super rare 100 Watt amp with a killer tone and REVERB and TREMOLO!4 6L6 tubes deliver sizzling plexi-like overdrive and volume galore!delivers a great Rock, Blues, Surf or Alt Country tone! a monster in the studio!a USA MADE HANDWIRED all original except for Sovtek replacement tubes and # prong cord!AN INCREDIBLE ONE OF A KIND GUITAR AMP!!! Starting at only 99 cents with no reserve!This is an auction for a very rare and very clean and original Airline amplifer (HEAD ONLY) that was made for Montgomery Wards catalog sales by Valco (who is best known for National and Supro brands). These came on the scene in the late 60's at the very end of their long reign as one of America's best underdog guitar company. Yes, this is one of the last amplifier designs of theirs to be included in a mail order catalog (which came out in the '68 Montgomery Wards catalog)...and probably one of their last amp designs period! It is well known that Valco was absorbed into Kay around this time, and they fulfilled the orders they had and slowly phased out USA made items, including closed down all their factories in Chicago (with the old Valco factory and all the rest of them gone by the mid 70's) to move production overseas. But this is the last gasp of that sought after tone you'll find. It is as much of a classic tube guitar amp as any Fender, Gibson, or Marshall you'll find. And not only it is clean, but it has just been serviced and runs 100% with the added 3 prong power cord. Only minor wear on bottom edge of the tolex.This beauty is the killer high wattage model, the Airline equivalent to the Silvertone 1485. Its sound is very Jack White, as it is the same basic amp design. (I know, I have the 1485 with the six-ten Jensen cabinet as well!) These were sold as a powerful and versatile amplifier back in the day and had some really interesting and unusual features not found in most Supro's. Besides the fact that it is a 'fully loaded' amp with huge sounding reverb and lush tremolo, it comes with its own set of light up stage lights unlike any other amp you will see out there! It is really stunning onstage and quite useful to see the controls when the house lights are dimmed, a very cool feature. It has independent jacks to connect a footswitch for the reverb and trem, as well as a very smart 'reset' switch that controls a fuse breaker in case of a jolt of electricity coming into the amp that trips, thereby saving your tubes and important components! The amp also has two separate channels (each with a volume and tone) that allow for channel switching of sorts with a simple passive A/B box. You can set one up clean, the other cranked, and go back and forth without issue. Pretty cool...Like most models that Valco supplied to their catalog amp line back in the day, this Airline head is really a slight rebrand of the Reverb and Tremolo Valco chassis they had used for many of the other models (like the 1484/1485). If you look at the chassis, it is the same layout as most of the Valco amps of the day. This is sort of what Valco did in this era. Lots of different amp lines, all the same amp. It has a great sound for recording or playing out and getting a killer natural overdrive tone. These all handwired, American made Valco amps have become very sought after due to their awesome sound and overdrive quality. Plus even with the price going up they're a lot cheaper than your average Fender/Marshall amps from the same era. This style is pretty well regarded thanks to it being so close to the Silvertone 1485 design. The 1485 has become a holy grail among vintage amp collectors and players for good reason. Its true some of that mania has been driven by the Jack White/Jimmy Page talk in guitar magazines, but some of it is simply from playing one of these awesome amps. I bought this amp to use in a White Stripes tribute band and trust me, I would never sell this one if a 1485 with the six ten cab had not fallen in my lap! Side by side comparison does show them to be quite the same, in layout and sound (I do also have a separate Silvertone six ten cab with new Jensen Gold label speakers in it that I will be selling as well,. If the buyer of this head is interested I will discount it to you). Once the Silvertone branded 1485 amps became so hot and expensive in the vintage market these other branded Valco amps began following their lead.Cosmetically, this amp is very clean as I mentioned. It has a finger joined pine cabinet just Fender Tweed era amps made famous. You can see the dovetails on the corners just like in a Fender amp. They don't make 'em like that any more. The black cloth and cool black 'ostrich' tolex are in nice shape, as is the chrome control panel, oversized knobs and handle. It looks great! There are a couple of small tolex tears/nicks in places and some scratches on the chrome, but all in all it is quite clean. Take a look over the photos to get the best idea of what I mean. The lettering on the front chrome and control panel is all in very nice shape without any major loss. The lights all work great without issue. It is in nice and original condition.If you like great sounding, classic overdriven guitar then it is hard to say anything bad about this amp's tone. I mean, it has the perfect range of broken up and slightly crispy clean to gnarly greasy 'amp sounds like it is about to explode' tones in it that all of us guitar players dream about in a tube amp. Overall, the amp sounds great wide open to my ears. But it will also do crisp and bright clean and pushed clean tones that are very Deluxe like. Like if a Deluxe had more balls and bass. That is sort of the vibe of this amp! Because it has lovely huge reverb that sounds a lot like Gibson amp reverb, big and crashy and gainy...like a tidal wave coming down a giant stairwell. The tremolo does a nice slow warbly smooth repeat as well as a fast and choppy one. I own an original Jetsons model Airline guitar (pictured, but NOT FOR SALE!!!) and plugging it into this amp is about as good as it gets, next to the 1485 which I also have.Valco has a long and rich history of making many cool lines. The Supro brand began in 1935 as a line of guitars being made by National-Dobro, the famous line of resonator guitars and electric slides. The Supro brand followed its brother lines as the mother company Valco was born in 1936 as part of a move from California to Chicago. Valco's name was an amalgam of Valco's primary owners first names (Victor Smith, Al Frost, and Louis Dopyera), and with the move the company saw a shift from acoustic instruments to amplifiers and electric instruments. It was an organization that was on the cutting the edge, and its innovations of this time include the first archtop with no soundhole for fighting feedback, and first two pickup electric guitar, a six coil pickup, fiberglass guitars, and some of the most deluxe double and triple neck slide guitars ever produced. They embraced a very ornate, Art Deco and early Moderne look to many of their guitars, with beautiful ornate Egyptian influenced motifs for position markers and spare two tone streamline body designs that recall high end stylized furniture of the day. They were truly on the cusp of culture and taste through the 40's. By the late 50's and early 60's, Valco had grown to be an enormous manufacturer, and had several brands it was making and marketing itself, such as National and Supro, as well as ton of others being distributed under other brands like Airline (Montgomery Wards), Harmony, Oahu, Silvertone (Sears), Custom Kraft, Tonemaster, even Gretsch and many others. Many models were almost identical under different brands, often with a different logo, pickup configuration, or sometimes a different finish. They made a lot of excellent guitars in this period, and some of their most collectible designs now fetch big bucks as I mentioned. With their 'Res-o-glass' bodied guitars they were entering into a 'jet-age' and futuristic look and style that was also very high quality. They certainly recall the designs of concept cars of the day. Their pickup design is brilliant, actually, offering what is in my book some of the fattest, most toneful sound in any guitars from the 60's. If anyone has seen or played either Jack White's Airline, the Supro Thunderbolt, or the famous National 'Map' guitars, you know what I mean. This is a really rare find for someone who even has the most complete collection of Valco guitars and amps, or someone who wants a excellent sounding, super reliable amp.I will ship the amp anywhere as long as you are willing to pay exact shipping charges. I will not gouge you on shipping cost, what you pay will be exactly what it cost me to get it to you. Paypal only please, and no bidders with negative feedback issues pertaining to unpaid items. Thanks for looking and happy bidding :) On Oct-23-11 at 17:37:12 PDT, seller added the following information:***AMENDMENT *** I have learned since this listing began that the amp is really 2x40 watt amp and not a true 80 or 100 watter. It is basically 2 amps in one. Still similar to the Silvertone 1485 which is the same layout, 2 output transformers each driving 2 power tubes. This amp is essentially 2 Airline 9131-A amps in one just like the Silvertone 1485 is essentially 2 Silvertone 1484 amps in one. I just went with what I was always told... "4 power tubes like a Marshall equalls 100 watts". Its really all the same in the end since a properly matched cab is going to disperse the wattage evenly across the speakers anyway, but it technically is different. I hope I did not mislead anyone as that was not my intention. My guess though is that if you are looking at this amp you probably understand what it is :)

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