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Vintage 1966 Rickenbacker Transonic Guitar/Bass Amp. Own a piece of Rock 'n' Roll history! This amp can be used for guitar or bass. It has built in effects including fuzz. The speaker cabinet has two 10" speakers and one 15" for a wide range. This is a used amp and is being sold "as is". The amp needs a power transistor replaced. I had replaced it once in the 80's and we used it for about ten years in a band I was in before it went out again. We used the speaker cabinet with an "Orange" tube amp after that. We called this amp "The Coffin" because of the shape. I bought this amp second hand and it came without the effect pedals. There are panel controls for all effects, so it was not a problem. Also the fabric on the cabinet front was gone and the former owners kids had poked holes in the speakers so I replaced them and put the metal guards over the new speakers. The 10" speakers are Randall guitar speakers and the 15" is a Peavey "Black Widow" bass speaker.
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Before I bid I contacted Bob Rissi in Yorba Linda CA. Bob was the original designer/builder and with only the above description to go by estimated that it would cost me about $1000 to $1200 to get the amp back into near mint shape -- with all original parts including speakers and cradle that he still has in his workshop. The amp is now with Bob and after looking it over he says that it will cost about $1600 to restore to almost original. He has everything but the new original grill cloth and a couple of knobs. He does have enough vintage original grill cloth though to recover the cabinet, but the cloth has a couple of small tears. He says he can restore this to near original condition with all original parts.
Here's my problem. With what I have in it and with the cost of the restoration I'm going to be at about $2400. Shipping back to St Louis (Bob Rissi says that these should be shipped very carefully) may run as much as $500 or $600. Rissi says he'll drive it back here to me for about $600. So if I go through with this I'll have close to $3,000 into this amp and I don't know if it's worth that much to me. It might be.
So . . I'm thinking about selling it. It would probably be best for one of our California members to buy it to avoid the delicate shipping issue. I may be willing to sell it pre-restoration ($850) or post-restoration ($2500). In either case the buyer would need to pick it up in Yorba Linda.
One last item -- Bob says that restoring this amp may drain him of many his original parts so this may be the last complete restoration he'll be able to do on one of these. I have no idea if this is accurate. He says that he is willing to sign this amp and verify his work on it. He also says that if I didn't want the used original grill cloth that he could use some grill cloth identical to the cloth he used for the prototypes he built of these. Again I have no idea if this is accurate. By the way JH, he blames your wonderful wife for the lack of grill cloth. He claims that she threw out the cloth in one of the factory cleanings.
Please let me know if you have an interest in this amp OR if you have ideas about how I may get it back to St. Louis without such heavy (no pun intended) shipping costs. There wouldn't be any cross-country movers or haulers among us willing to transport it for some reasonable amount of $$, would there?
