Here come the interesting bit; Mike writes.... "I bought it NEW in 1996 from a little music store in a small Ohio town- $389 US, never sold except to me.  I sent in the warranty card.  About 5 weeks later, Fender called, and wanted me to read the numbers off the tubes, and the serial number to verify that it was in fact NEW.  They then extended their five-year warranty to me (with a comment that, if the amp needed major repair they would have to replace it with a $1000 amp).  It never did."

(see also "Timewarp" below....)

yep, it's new-in-box. The seller says "This amplifier was purchased in 1984 and was never used and is in the original box with original papers and users manual." (The serial number does indeed make it a '84). I have asked for more info, and asked where it's BEEN all these years, and warned about the hazards of firing up electrolytic caps after  21 years of non-use. I hope to hear from the seller or the buyer, (yes! see below) but in the meantime you might want to imagine what it must have been like to buy a point-to-point NEW Fender amp, get it home, take it out of the box, and fire it up for the first time. Only Custom Shop customers get that feeling now, I think. For some reason these images (lifted from the eBay page) don't show up here with the same definition, but the purple 'new' wrapper has the slogan across the top in small black letters 'The sound that creates legends".

In Tom Wheeler's excellent book The Soul of Tone: Celebrating 60 years of Fender amps, p.348, Fender veteran Steve Grom says "The Rivera amps in the early 80s, especially the tube models... looked like old Fender amps. Dealers would take them out of the box (and) stick them with the old ones... nobody realized it was a whole new model... we tried putting a silver and purple banner across the front of these amps. It said 'new, new, new'. It would rattle like crazy. It was like one of those 'sanitized for your protection' paper things." My own London Reverb has the remains of this purple thing stapled in behind the grille.

The new owner has been kind enough to contact me with more detail - Norm F, of Virginia, USA, writes...."I slow started the old/new amp by letting it warm up with the volume turned all the way down. No problems occurred and it sounds great. It even has that new amp smell.....go figure!...... The amp was purchased new and then the guitarist was in an accident. Evidently he held on to it hoping to recover his playing abilities and never did. The amp had remained in the original package in a closet all these years. The gentleman was recently selling the family home and decided to let the amp go as well.

 

In all my years of playing, I never would have imagined I would own this fine amp in showroom condition. Needless to say having already owned one that has paid it's dues many times over......I am sold on the Reverb II."

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Gerd Goes One Better

Gerd S, also in Germany, just sent me these photos (Oct 2012). I hope these amps are stored in a secret location....



Yes, that's two Super Champs and two PRIIs. All Gerd's......



... and one of his guitars. You can see Gerd with one of his PRIIs, extreme right (black Les Paul) on this video