1965 Fender Bassmans (Bassmen?)

I haven't seen any heads here in missouri but I have a 1965 fender bassmen cab. I wish it had the original speakers in it though.

 

The blackface ones make better guitar amps, or great overdriven bass amps.

 

I had a '65 Fender Bassman 50 (head only), the one with two input channels. Very very nice sound, but not very loud. When I bought mine, I paid way less than that for it, more like $300. But that was about ten years ago, perhaps they fetch more these days.

 

I just picked up a really nice looking one ('66 I think) for a friend for $350 last week. It had a few mods that needed to be taken out, and benefitted from a little general TLC, but it sounds very good now.

 

So... where is "H-town...?"

BTW... Bassmans is grammatically correct...

 

You'll need all three if you want to be heard.

 

+1 They're good for quiet jams and rehearsals, but don't keep up with a rock drummer very well, unless you like lots of overdrive.

FWIW, I think those prices are high. Try to haggle. But I can understand paying extra to try before you buy rather than taking a chance online.

 

Houston.

Mike

 

I paid $500 for my '65 Bassman and '65 JBass, new, in 1965.

 

Those numbers are high for a Bassman unless it's absolutely Cherry! I got the one that Passinwind found last week and I have to say... He did a really super job on it. It's a great sounding amp and while it's not loud - that isn't what it's for. For a bassist, it's a recording amp for the most part and with the right speaker, it's a sweet one!

Now when PW get's to do the DI out and we stuff that into the front end of my GK it might be a different story although I'd be the only bassist on the block carrying a 40 lb preamp...

 

+1. I've restored two of these in the last month or two. Mal's had previously been re-capped, the other had not. It'd be easy to spend $200 or so on restoring one that has been modded for guitar, which many have. I was doing an evaluation for the previous owner of Mal's amp, so we all knew exactly what was involved in making it cherry. That particular amp has the AA 165 circuit, which I've never seen before. The 'bass' channel is, ermm...unique shall we say. I'm retired from the repair biz, but Mal seems bent on keeping my nose to the grindstone anyway.