OffsetGuitars.com

Alright, so Im in Cleveland,TN engaged in an experince titled "hell week" in which for a solid week straight we jam and record demos all day in hopes of finishing all the material for my bands upcoming ablum. (wow, hell of a sentence) I went to this local music shop, which is a total dump of a shop, but low and behold admist the broken PAs and knock off decaled fender strats there is an original Marshall JCM 800 from 1987. I tried to find some information on the internet but couldnt really find any, except that they made a reissue a couple years back called the 1987X. Also there was a matching cab that was super old as well. Well older than the 80's I think. the serial number plate or whatever had fallen off or been removed so i couldnt age it that way. The reason I feel like its older is because instead of the Marshall logo in the center, only an M is the the bottom right left hand corner. I saw a picture of Jimi Hendrix playing a Marshall cab with the M in the corner. The whole package was 900$ and our guitarist just went to do buy it! Do you guys know anything about that amp from that year, or anything on how to date the cab?

don't know many things about them...they are pretty common here in England...I see them all the time in rehearsal studios, and have played through loads of them.

they sound great distorted.

I don't believe the 1987x was a JCM800 reissue though. It was 50 watt model in the vein of the "plexi" styled ones.

Justin

the only way to date a marshall cab is to look at the details and features of the cabinet. Speakers (if original) will tell you the date. Thats the best way to tell what year a cab is from. Also the grill cloth. If the cabinet is from the 60s, it is worth more that the head. Open it up and check the speakers, they will tell you a year.

If it's the real thing, it'll be great. My 2554 Silver Series combo is basically a JCM800 - the whole series was built on the bones of the 800 series - and it's sweet.

Pretty much the whole JCM800 series is regarded as Marshall's best recent era for amp production. Some people didn't like the tweaks that were made in the JCM900 and subsequent eras, and the original JMPs from the 70s are already in goo-goo collector land (with prices to match).

i own a marshall jcm 800 single channel 50 watt (it's the fugazi model) that i bought used in 1987 and i still rock it all the time.  it shows up tons on a lot of the records i record for other people.  a producer i work with and for (page from helmet) also has a couple of them and they are extremely cool.  if you look on the back by where the IEC power cord plugs in there will be a 4 digit model number.  i could give you more specific info from that, but yes jcm 800's are cool.  there's a joke that gets kicked around studios like "some one told me you can plug a les paul right into these and it sounds ok"  because you've heard it thousands of times on records.  also, if the grill cloth is silver and it looks like the back has never been popped open, i'd hesitate before i opened it up.  some serious heads say the really old boutiqueish vintage ones don't sound the same after they've been popped open,  but i doubt that's what you're looking at here.  if it is you scored.  good luck, and enjoy!