This'll be a good gauge of current fetishism!

[eleventeen]

Naked 1957 Bassman chassis!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270610572183&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

[bluesbear]

Too bad about all the rust on the PT laminations.
Dave

[eleventeen]

?? Why, that's a badge of authenticity! Doesn't affect anything.

[bluestone]

It is my understanding that it does if the rust is deep enough to bridge the laminations.

[eleventeen]

I could believe that. The rust on the PT doesn't appear too bad in this case. I bet this gets to over $2,000.

[simonallaway]

It looks like you'd end up spending a ton of cash replacing everything from caps and pots to tube sockets and transformers. I bet it doesn't sound any better than a carefully built clone. I suppose if you've also got an empty '57 Bassman cabinet to put it in, it might be worth it. *shrug*

[eleventeen]

Well, there are several dynamics going on.

The seller has an interest in obtaining max dollars for his thing. "We" have an aloof interest in seeing how silly the bidding gets. Now the buyer, that's where it gets interesting. All the seller needs is ONE buyer with too much money who believes owning this old thing will make him sound like Eric Clapton.

I agree, as a practical matter, assembling a functioning and apparently stock 1957 Bassman from this and whatever else one would have to scrounge up is not a very practical means of achieveing a reliable, functioning guitar amplifier.

HOWEVER: Someone out there may well have a goofily (electronically) modifed or badly fried/flamed otherwise stock Bassman that they could turn into a $5,000 thing if they were so inclined.

By the way, this seller has some pretty unusual stuff. Sparkle gold body & headstock '65 Jazz Bass. (I have a sparkle green = Ocean Turqoise one!) He seem like the type who puts a very high reserve price on things to see what the market will bear.

[HotBluePlates]

It looks like you'd end up spending a ton of cash replacing everything from caps and pots to tube sockets ...

Maybe tube sockets if they're loose. To me, the entire circuit board looks new/replaced except for the handful of yellow caps. The resistor may be original, but even the board looks new to me. Old boards typically have much more warp/bend to them from years of being bolted down to the insulator board and chassis.

But most everything looks new; there is an added thumbwheel bias adjustment, and a silicon diode in heatshrink between the original bias tap wire and an add-on wire to replace the stock selenium rectifier (which is left in-chassis but disconnected).

To me, the only thing in this auction worth paying for would be the transformers, and that assumes the rust on the PT doesn't cause problems (often it doesn't; sometimes it does). Everything else can be done with modern parts just as good.

[bluesbear]

The OT and choke look okay but I wouldn't trust that PT as far as I could throw it. In some of the ebay pics, it actually looks like the rust has depth. I wouldn't plug it in.
Dave