Blackface faceplate question white paint vs raw aluminum lettering

Hey guys, long time lurker first time* poster here. As the title of my post suggests, I am curious about the blackface faceplate lettering color. I've seen it mostly as a white paint (silkscreen I assume) but in my search for answers I am seeing some that appear to be aluminum lettering (no paint just raw metal exposed under the black). This includes the index marks for the controls, the bright switch box outlines and the input jack ring outlines (barely visible behind the nut that holds them to the front panel). The logo (and everything else on the faceplate that isn't black) also appears in a similar fashion.

I just recently purchased a 1965 Pro Reverb and it has what appears to be raw silver metal as the lettering instead of white paint. Was this something they did on some faceplates or is this a replacement?

As you can imagine this is a really hard topic to search for, being that any searches with the world "silver" bring up a plethora of silverface questions so I apologize if a thread exists already.

I'll post a pic and video to demonstrate what I mean

Be sure to check the gear icon settings for the video quality. The striations may not appear in the low 480p quality setting




(clickable for a very large fullsize)

I have a feeling it's a reproduction but if it is, it seems to be VERY old. If any of you guys have any insight about these faceplates I would be forever grateful. It's always great to learn new things about these old fender amps and I am new to all of this!

 

Thanks, let me know what you find out!

Thanks! I am curious if you own any of similar design?

Would you mind sharing some photos?

It's really hard to capture in photos, the silver reflects light in a way that is very distinct so I opted to post a video of it. It's probably the horizontal lines in the finish that give it away... Do you have any pics that you can share?

I'm very new to this but I had another 65 pro reverb briefly (stupidly returned it not knowing what I had) and it had white paint for the legends. I miss it dearly.

I'm just hoping it's not a repro, but apparently some of you guys are saying it isn't so that's a plus. I must say, I prefer white to raw metal... Kind of bummed this one doesn't have it.

 

Thanks for sharing! I see that the font looks similar but can't quite make out whether it's paint or metal. Another minor detail I noticed on my amp, the bright switch screws have a hollow dot at one of the 4 corners of the phillips interface. From my experience this is a JIS screw but it seems odd that Fender would use these. Here's a pic of them:

I know what you mean, I seem to feel like I've seen this raw metal instead of white paint on some fender and can't recall what it was. Maybe it was the 80s era amps? i.e. super twin reverb or the like?

This is the first time I've ever seen silver instead of white but I am very new at this vintage fender thing. I've only experienced a handful of amps and have only owned 2 (returned the first one). Thank you for taking the time to investigate this with me. I kind of just want to know if there are others out there similar to mine since the only ones I've seen in person are all obvious white paint text/legends/logo.

What do you think about those fasteners though, would Fender use JIS screws back in the 60s? Oh also, your reverb is backwards!

 

Well funny you should ask for this, curiosity got the best of me this sunday afternoon and I pulled the faceplate! (I have no idea how I'm going to reinstall it, as I used the faceplate as a "wrench" of sorts to loosen it...)

There's no fender logo on the back of it from what I can see so that's curious...



The amp is an Oxford 12L5-1 equipped 1965 Pro Reverb with a replaced PT (F022798 part number, any info on the F prefix?) and the EIA code is 606935 and it has the CSA TEST roll mark as well.









The inside of the chassis is smoke-stained on the left side from what I assume was a spectacular lightshow . The inside of the cabinet reflects this as well. Interestingly the tech put a note on the replacement transformer with a date and a warranty of 90 days re: 5881's being removed in lieu of 6L6GC's.




The tube chart seems to have a double date stamp or something and the cabinet has a odd stamp I've never seen before (again my experience is very limited). The reverb tank bag has torn through at both screw ends allowing it to flop around completely free in the cabinet and the springs have beaten the label off the inside of the tank and the cardboard has the telltale black lines from the springs hitting it (no photos of this, it's all tucked back in and larger washers augment the original to help hold it down until I decide a more permanent solution). It still works and sounds good though! Above the strange stamp in the cabinet are staples with brown paper under it, I'm not sure what that was but it seems to have been a long time ago that it was torn out.



A note about the components video, there's a manual switch I added to the tremolo circuit yesterday. I just ran a switch out of the actual jack hole for the trem pedal since this amp didn't come with one. I just wrapped the wires around ground and the appropriate tremolo circuit point. It's completely undo-able which was my goal being that I am probably going to attain a pedal at some point (the vintage ones are absurd! 200 bucks...) so this is a temporary solution to turn it on and off without soldering.



It sounds great despite the issues it seems to have had



Shoot I forgot to include the PT/choke/reverb transformers. I'll follow up with those. They're dated 65.

 

Ah yes the date code hangup between 1965 and 1966, I forgot about that!

My chassis serial is A02378 which is 1965 according to Greg
Pro Reverb AA165 (blackface)

A00100 to A02700 – 1965
A02700 to A06200 – 1966
A06200 to A10200 – 1967

(Any idea what that magic marker "W" shape is?)

Here's another picture of the chart, I think it's an OL which would be December of 1965. The transformers have year markings of 1965 and weeks from 39th and 47th
(September 26, 1965 to October 2, 1965 and November 21, 1965 to November 27, 1965) The reverb driver and output transformer having the earlier dates and the choke being the later one.



(clickable to see fullsized version)

This is very interesting though, I hadn't thought of the double stamp as a factory date correction... I figured it was just stamped twice for good measure because the first one was off the chart and onto the wood but now I'm wondering what that mysterious missing letter is...