I emailed the Seller via ebay telling him of the discrepancies put forward in
the reply from Gerald Weber to the Authenticity of this amp being a Woodie
and the
Missing Link as he says. In his " Historical Comment" paragraph
he makes some bold statements about this amp. Without expert
verification of this, I feel he cannot make such open and shut comments
that this is indeed an
100% Original Missing Link Pro Amp
His Reply........ ha ha....
NO REPLY as expected
Tom Wheeler in his excellent book, The Soul of Tone - 60 yrs of Fender
talks about the Woodies. Provides photo's of them. The Woodie Cab for
a Pro was not as wide as this sellers cab, is taller, as per the later Tweed
Pro's. It ONLY ever came in a Hardwood Cab with the choice of three grill
cloth colors -
RED - BLUE - CREAM/GOLD with the Metal Strips on
the front. The internal construction of the Sellers " Missing Link" cab is a
million miles away from the way Fender built there Cabs in this era. Even
the Grill Cloth is different. That is the Cloth used by
VALCO of that
period. I have several early - mid 50s Supro's all with that weave on the
cloth, and the same screen printing albeit SUPRO instead of the Musical
Notes. Fender NEVER used that type of Cloth.
Without concrete factual evidence this seller cannot claim this amp to be
anything other than a Fender Pro, 1950. It would have had a TV Front Cab
Even the earlier Woodies had the
Fender Logo on them, prior to them
the very first amps had the
K&F Logos for Doc Kaufman & Leo Fender
** Why would this Cab have no - FENDER - Logo ???
No doubt this is an early Pro, first production run with the new Chassis
design, but a " Missing Link" worth $28,500
I would assume that
the original owner didn't like the TV Cab or some other reason, and had
a cabinet maker make a custom cab for it. If Fender made a custom Cab
for this gentleman, they still would have made the cab using the standard
Fender construction techniques, and materials of the period.
That Baffle and the way the Tolex and Grill cloth are affixed is pure
Valco in style, definitely NOT Fender. Fender weren't even using
Tolex for another
Ten (10) years !!! You mean they went out and bought
(if even avail ? ) a piece of Tolex just for this " one off " custom build, a
material they themselves wouldn't even use for another
TEN (10)
years !!! Yeah Right , pull the other one
Pic - Front -
(Princeton) Middle -
(Deluxe) Rear -
(Pro)