The '63 Jag is my birth year guitar and I was on the fence about letting it go but I figured I would see how I'd get on with Matt's '61 Jazzmaster. A big motivation for me was to move the '62 Pro amp to thin my amp herd. I never intended to keep the Pro for long - it was a rescue purchase from Atomic Music and then I had it professionally serviced with the intention of moving it on for someone to enjoy. I'm learning (took a while) that I can be happy with less than with more - so I'm all set for vintage amps with my '62 Fender Bandmaster and '63 Fender Showman.
Matt showed me lots of cool gear and I think while we both appreciated our potential guitar trades, the reality of moving on the guitars suddenly became impactful for us both. Matt used his '61 Jazzmaster on some recordings and while he hadn't been playing it too much lately, I think after playing it a bit he fell in love with it all over again (I presume, lol). For me, my '63 Jag has been my #1 guitar for a few years now and it's the best Jag I've ever played. My #2 Jag is my Johnny Marr Signature Jag - a fantastic guitar and a very close 2nd.
Slight side tangent - I plan to post a FWIW in the near future - while I'll always be in love with my vintage gear, my favorite Jazzmaster is my Musikraft/MJT JM build with Fralin Hum-Cancelling JM pickups. I commissioned this build after it became financially necessary to move on my '63 Jazzmaster. So I was honestly looking at the '61 Jazzmaster as an investment to hold on to for as long as possible. It's a great guitar but I don't think it would get played as much due to my affinity with my Musikraft/MJT Jazzmaster. That's how amazing this JM build is.
Still, I know Matt really wanted the Pro and I was happy to move it on to him. I had no idea what else he had that would have been a fair trade option. After bringing out various gear (his '62 Bassman is museum-quality pristine that he is looking to sell), he brought out a highly regarded, modern hand-wired amp - a Magnatone Twilighter. We both understood this was definitely a fair trade - awesome amp for awesome amp of comparative value and we could both hang on to our vintage Fender guitars a while longer.
I joked with Matt that if that the guitar trade had gone through, I'd be ugly crying all the way home and singing that old CInderella song, "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i28UEoLXVFQ.
BTW, during the hair band era, Cinderella was probably one of my top 3 fave bands at that time and I've always loved this particular song. This from a guy who's mainly into alternative, punk, surf, etc.... 
Bonus for me, Matt gave me a CD of one of his surf bands, The Coconauts. Thoroughly enjoyed listening to it last night and I now have it in my huge surf library on iTunes to play along with. Great production, great playing, and very cool songs - here's the album cover (scanned) - guess which one is Matt:
I put his CD in a place of honor...
Here's the Magnatone Twilighter followed by it's specs...Oh! I forgot to mention how AMAZING this amp sounds!! Totally does my surf thing and takes pedals very well. I plan on playing some of my Gretsch guitars through it today and I'm very much looking forward to my incoming NGD purchase from RIORIO (Josh) - should be an excellent pairing!
I never thought I'd be able to own one of these amps and now that I've got the Magnatone FEVER, I'm going to save up for a Magnatone Panoramic Stereo (2x10, 12 + 12 Watts) amp.
FEATURES
- Original varistor based pitch shifting vibrato switchable to tremolo
- Tube driven spring reverb
- Dual 6V6 output tubes
- Full bodied clean tones and natural overdrive
- Finger jointed cabinet
- Custom voiced 12" speaker
- GZ34 Tube rectifier
- Vibrato/Tremolo speed may be controlled by remote expression pedal
TECHNICAL SPECS
TUBE COMPLEMENT:
(4) 12AX7, 12AU7, (2) 6V6, GZ34
POWER OUTPUT:
22 watts Push-Pull, Class AB into 8 Ohms
INPUTS:
High and Low Sensitivity
BASS:
12 dB range at 60 Hz
OPTIONAL REMOTE REDAL:
20-50 kΩ
REVERB:
Tube Driven 4 Counterwound Springs Long Pan
SPEAKER:
Magnatone Custom 12" Ceramic Magnet
TREBLE:
14 dB range at 2 kHz
VIBRATO:
True pitch shifting stereo varistor vibrato switchable to conventional tremolo
COMBO DIMENSIONS:
22.5" x 10" x 19.5"
COMBO WEIGHT:
38 lbs.
Anyone else have/had a Magnatone amp?
