I have one with the pulse on the back panel. I love it. I just picked it up last week from the original owner; he is in his 80’s. He put it up for sale cheep cause the tolex is gone, the vibrato doesn’t work and it has a Jensen 16 inch speaker from 1951. I drove 100 miles to get it and gave him what he asked.

Were`nt the center volume concerts the same one as the early 1960 models made in 1959 ?? Does either one you owned have the pulse cap on the back panel ?

I have an early “1960” version, that was actually manufactured in late 1959. I was so blown away by it, I went out and bought a rare “center volume” 1960 version too, but sold it because for whatever reason it just didn’t sound as good. Both of them have/had only 5 preamp tubes. Many have written about the great quality of the tremelo on the later brown Concerts with 6 preamp tubes. Frankly, I don’t care a toss about the tremelo–who needs it? It’s the pure unadulterated tone that impresses me. I use different Fenders from different eras–tweed, brown, blackface–all are great, but when it comes to tone, none can touch the Concert. It sounds similar to the 1959 Bassman, but with more depth/bottom & headroom. It stands to reason they sound similar, considering the earlier 1960 Concerts and the 1959 Bassmans share the same “45249” output transformer. The earlier Concerts also have the same speakers as the ’59 Bassman: Jensen p10q’s & p10r’s. On my Concert, I use 1960 p10q’s on the bottom and 1959 p10r’s on the top. Fortunately, my Concert still has it’s orinal yellow tone capacitors–something else it has in common with the ’59 Bassman. But unlike the ’59 Bassman, the Concert has a solid state drive recitifier. That works better for me, perhaps because I’m going for more of a rock sound. The Concert also lacks the “floating” speaker baffleboard that tweed Bassmans enjoy, but somehow the Concert’s tone doesn’t suffer–maybe because brown Fender combos use plywood baffleboards, not the tone robbing particleboard baffleboards found in the blackface Fender combos. Of course, some seemingly identical amps just sound better or worse for mysterious reasons. In any case, if you are fortunate enough to come across an early brown Concert, grab it!

While in school I worked for a repair shop in North Hollywood for a couple of years, in the early 70’s, at a place called Valley Sound. I remember a beautiful brown Concert came in that I was asked to replace the speakers with new JBL’s. I was amazed because it was a heavy amp to begin with, and now it was even heavier! It belonged to Kent Henry (an amazing guitarist) who had just joined Steppenwolf. We did all their gear. Good times!

John Eppstein, is there any known way to tell the amp was Skip’s by looking at it aside from the black paint job? Would love to see if the one I picked up in SF could be it. Do you recall if he had a matching brown reverb unit painted black in the same manner?