Grouse Guitars, your favourite vintage guitar dealer
Grouse Guitars - previously your vintage guitar, bass and amp dealer (now closed). Click the 'back' plectrum to go back to the previous page, or click the "Grouse Guitars" nameplate above to go directly to the Grouse Guitars homepage.

Here is a very rare amp head, unfortunately without the speaker box it would have originally been sold with. This Portaflex is one of the 'flip top' amps, where the top 'flips' into the box for carrying, thus protecting the amp and making the most compact dimensions possible. When wanting to use the amp, the owner would simply 'flip' the top so the amp head was exposed in all its glory, ready for action! Note the handle on the underneath in the 'more pistures' link below.

Pot codes on the all-original pots are all between late 1963 and early 1964, placing the production date in early 1964. The Ampeg B12XY was the ultimate guitar version of the famous B12 and B15 bass amps (the numbers refer to the speaker size, not output power), and has tremolo and full spring reverb. A very interesting interview with the designer of these legendary amps can be seen here.

The amp is very conservatively built, and would rate at around 30watts from its two 7027A output valves, unlike late ('70s) Ampeg guitar amps that wrung around 70 watts from the same valves!

This amp has just been serviced by Melbourne's Ross Giles, and is in remarkable condition. It has an extensive valve lineup as follows;

  • 1 x 5AR4
  • 1 x 7591
  • 2 x 6D10
  • 2 x 6SN7
  • 1 x 6SL7
  • 1 x 7199
  • 2 x 7027A

Ideally this amp would be matched with a speaker box with a high-quality 12" speaker, and a second small (6 or 8 inch) speaker of only a few watts capacity to handle the separate reverb output. If it doesn't sell soon, that's exactly what I'll have built (as per original Ampeg Portaflex specs) to keep and use for myself.

Sold to Martin


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