The 22-Year Makeover: 1963 Fender Concert Restoration
Way back in 1999, I was in Austin Vintage Guitars and made an impulse buy on an amp. It was 1963 Fender Concert – one of the Fender " brownface " era amps, which are lesser-known but are still revered among vintage Fender fans. Outside its pedigree as a vintage Fender, it was not what most players would consider a "desirable amp". In fact, my wife thought I was crazy. And she had a point – it was pretty much a basket case. The cabinet had been stripped of its original brown tolex and refinished with a poorly-done varnish stain. The wheat grill cloth had been replaced with a black one that was just all kinds of wrong. Lots of components in the circuit had been replaced, it had a hole drilled in the back of the chassis from some previous mod, and the tube chart had unfortunately been removed. The speakers had also been replaced with some vintage alnico Wilder speakers which were actually pretty cool, but they weren't really appropriate for the amp and they had
