Hey all!
New member to TalkBass here. Hope you don't mind one of those ego-Maniac 6 string guitarists invading your forum.
So why am I here. Well that's a 30 year plus answer, which I'll try to compress in as few words as possible before I loose you.
Back around 1982 I was offered a tube amp that was not working, if I wanted it, and wanted to put the work in to get it functioning. When it showed up, low and behold, it was a B-15 Porta-flex. Being a guitar player, I wasn't in much of a rush to dig into it, but I noticed that the mains fuse was blown, and the fuse holder was pretty beat up. So, I put it aside as a project that I would get to shortly. After all it was the early eighties, and I was playing through a monster 150W solid State combo. Metal baby! Good god, what an awful tone I had. lol.
Anyway, that where it stayed. But I kept telling myself I would work on it soon. 4 house moves and many years later, I believe that time has finally arrived. Procrastination anyone?
In my mind, my memory of the amp, seemed to get worse and worse...by that I mean, every time I thought about dragging it out, I imagined the Amp looking worse and worse, to the point of when I was ready to flip open the top, I expected this mess of rust, and unidentifiable stuff growing all over it. Figured it would be no more that a bunch of random parts I might be able to sell to satisfy some other G.A.S.
To my surprise. It didn't look that bad at all. Same blown fuse hanging out of the broken holder, same questionable tubes, but not the disaster I expected.
I have been trying to do some research, dating, etc. on this cherished amp, and think I have more questions about this baby than when I started. I also found this place in my research and after reading a quite a few dozen posts in this thread, it became apparent that if there were answers to be had, this is the place. The knowledge here is pretty impressive.
So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. ;-p
Future plans for the Amp? well I want it up and running, thick it would make a great stereo amp for my guitar rig next to my vintage JCM800. Although I did promise my Bass player in the local old timers band I play in that he could borrow it for a few months. Personally, I think he's planning on me having an accident so he can elope with the amp. Haha.
So here are the questions.
Dating. The serial number on the AMP and inside the Cab is 000007. Seems it is 1965. The EIA code on the original square magnet CTS speaker is 137466. Which I believe is 46th week of 1964. The tricky part. The label on the inside of the cab has the model number pre-printed as B-12-NC, but it has been scratched out and a hand written B-15-N just below. There is a second label with B-15-N pre-printed Partially stuck over and alongside the the scratched out label. Side note: The handwritten B-15-N printing is very reminiscent of J Oliver's hand written notes from 1995 on the heritage B-15. I found those notes here in the Portaflex Wiki. Probably not him, and I'm just wisking on a flight of fancy, but leave an old guy to his imagination. We ain't got much left but that.
Anyway, as we know....Pics, or it didn't happen.
Here you go: I'll post the serial numbers pics first, then others so this post doesn't take 2 pages by itself. Again, thanks for reading this and thanks for any help that anyone might want to volunteer. I do have a replacement fuse holder and a new set of tubes on the way. Thank you Fliptops!
