"MUSTANG REVERB THIRTY!"

[mezcalhead]

Here's another piece of kit, from the attic this time.

This is no lifestyle brand boutique amp but I though it might be a bit quirky and interesting to look at. It's an obscure old solid state amp that appears to have been made in New Zealand in imitation of the Fender silverfaces, I'm guessing sometime in the 70s. I bought it in the late 80s from a friend's dad who had used it to play lapsteel, and I gigged it fairly heavily in bands in high school. It was pretty reliable and never broke down during that time. It has been in the attic unused since the late 90s.

It proudly calls itself a Mustang Reverb Thirty .. I assume it's 30W and appears to have a single 12" speaker. It has two channels, each with a bright switch, treble/bass, a master volume and spring reverb. It is fairly loud considering it's a solid state amp, and IIRC would keep up with a drummer without too much of a problem. I could only get it up to about 5 and 5 today .. no breakup evident. It has a Fender-like sound, almost too bright and biting with the bright switch on, but very mellow with the bright switch off.













Made by Dimco Industries, NZ, who helpfully put the entire schematic inside the back cover. Dimco were apparently involved in making a range of musical electronic equipment including PA heads and record players. The name Marinucci for guitar amps is also associated with them.









Here are some codes, and a look inside the back. I couldn't see any codes at all on the pots.

The speaker code points to a Utah made in the 4th week of either 1966 or 1976. '66 seems a bit early as Fender weren't even making silverfaces until late '67, but I suppose it's possible that the speaker sat around in a warehouse for a few years until used. I'm not sure whether the code should be seven digits for a 1976 rather than six. So I'm a bit up in the air about that.

Neither of the codes on the transformer seem to make much sense; the 14126 may indicate Coil Engineering but the fact that it's a five digit code makes me think that's probably not a date source code at all.









And finally, hanging out with a couple of mates.







So there you go, nothing expensive but kinda intriguing in its own way. Doug, you're a bit of a fan of Pacific Rim ripoffs of Fender gear .. ever see one of these guys before? I admit I haven't done any googling about it yet so there might be extensive info out there for all I know.

[jagermeister]

...that looks, smells, and sounds exactly like my kind of amp

Tempted to ask you how much you want for it, but I've got to speaker my own libra first, lol.

[mezcalhead]

Heh, not for sale .. would probably cost more than what it's worth to ship to you anyway.

I was thinking it was kind of a ripoff of a silverface Deluxe, but now that you mention it, it does seem more like a baby Libra, being solid state and all.

I remember having a fairly low opinion of it when I put it in storage, but now compared to the old valve Fenders I've played since then it doesn't seem like such a bad amp .. not in their league, but if you take it for what it is then it has a certain character of its own. I wish I had a mike and interface here, I'd get some clips of it.

[fullerplast]

Yeah, I love that kind of stuff... but I've never seen one of those.  It's pretty cool! If the colors were reversed on the panel, it would look alot like a Fender!  I like the way they nicked the "Mustang" name too... hehe.

It kind of reminds me of the Sunn Mustang guitars from India or Indonesia. You don't think think maybe this amp was sold with them, do you?

Edited to add:  Cool knobs too!