Vintage Champs and Vibro-Champs ...

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

I thought it would be interesting to have a look at some recent auction sale prices of Fender Champs and Vibro-Champs , they are red hot these days and prices are up considerably in the past 3-6 months .

On Jan 4/07 a 1964 transitional 5F1 champ sold for 1100 us ..the transitional 64 is realy a tweed wrapped in black tolex , nice , this one looked all original and the condition was exceptional . I bought one in similar condition in November of 05 for 435us on ebay and that was alot then but condition drove the price , thats a pretty healthy increase in 2 years .

on Dec 26 /06 a 1967 Vibro-Champ recieved 26 bids and sold for 750.us ..the amp was all original and once again in top cosmetic condition . I bought my 67 on ebay , all original and in great shape for 335 us in jan 05.

A 64 Vibro-Champ that looked brand new , complete with all hang tags , manual and schematic and victoria cover went on a buy it now on dec 28/06 for 995 us .. a great buy for someone .

54 tweed Champ ..26 bids 1025 us on dec 26/06 a little rough cosmetically but all there ..original 5f1's seem to all be in the 800-1400 us range, again 12 months ago the same amp was 650-900 ...

Clean original silverface Vibro Champs have been hitting the 500-600 range recently , 12 months ago they were commonly found for 250-325.

these amps are certainly rising fast and within a few years will be outta reach as a entry level vintage tube amp , too bad because they certainly are one of the most amazing sounding amps ever built and accessable to most moneywise .. the prices of these amps are without a doubt on the way up , my advice is to get one now while they are still out there for reasonable bucks ..( good deals can still be found, 65-82 champs and vibro champs were basically unchanged with the exception of cabinet construction materials and cosmetics) so a late 70's champ for 200 bucks will seem like a steal in a few years ... food for thought ... 6S9L

[sunvalleylaw]

Just a quick google search (I just plugged in fender vibro-champ) pulled up a couple plus or minus of 5 or 6 hundred on craigslist, etc. Pretty cool! Too bad I don't have the spending $$ for a suite full of amps!

[Mark]

I have a 69 Princeton Reverb silverfaced blackline drip edge that I just love and recently accuired a 69 Vibro Champ also silverfaced with Drip edge. I am going through both replacing caps and so forth. Very nice amps I dont see myself buying any "new off the shelf" amps anymore. I might collect a few more as I really enjoy bringing them up to snuff and enjoying the improvement. They are just incredibly sweet sounding little amps. You gotta really hunt for decent deals though.

[tot_Ou_tard]

I have a 69 Princeton Reverb silverfaced blackline drip edge that I just love and recently accuired a 69 Vibro Champ also silverfaced with Drip edge. I am going through both replacing caps and so forth. Very nice amps I dont see myself buying any "new off the shelf" amps anymore. I might collect a few more as I really enjoy bringing them up to snuff and enjoying the improvement. They are just incredibly sweet sounding little amps. You gotta really hunt for decent deals though.

Hey Mark! Just what is blackline drip edge?

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

Mark ..those are sweet ..the PR is an awesome amp , love the drip edge cosmetics .. and well a sfvc is da bomb .. hang on to em ..unless you wanna sell em to me that is . You can get cabinets now to drop the vc chassis into that is baffled for a 12" speaker and weber makes a 3.2 ohm especially for that set up , alot of guys say its amazing ..I run my champs through my 2-12 4 ohm bassman cab in the studio and it is outstanding ... nice stuff man love to see vintage pics here ....

[Mark]

When Fender first transitioned to Silverfaced amps they had some come out with the silverface but thin blacklines in the faceplates and the drip edge which is the aluminum border around the grill. This is only found on the earliest examples of the silverfaced line and are harder to find and are in fact becoming rare. The electronics are the exact same as found in the Blackfaced amps. I plan on hanging on to them and enjoying them, as well as collecting a few more to restore. I just bring them up to like new I dont care to mod them out of how they were intended to be. Speakers,tubes, caps and three prong cords is all I do to them. They just sound great!