nirvana23freak said:
why reissue? you can afford a vintage one...
I've never seen a vintage 60s Twin Reverb for under $2000, so if you find one you're hella lucky. You can find silverface twins in this price range, but only the late 60s or early 70s era are possibly worth considering, but even that is debateable.
A lot of people assume if they have a late 60s or early 70s silverface that they have a handwired circuit board instead of PCB. This is true only to a point, Fender was very cheap after the CBS take over and would often use whatever extra parts it had lying around to finish products. So some, but not all, of the late 60s and early 70s silverface amps do have handwired circuits that were left over from the blackface era. So it's wrong to just assume a late 60s or early 70s silverface is in fact handwired.
If you do decide to go with a silverface (which I don't recommend) make sure the fender logo has a small "swish" line under it, and that it does not have a master volume. This will help ensure that you're getting a late 60s or early 70s silverface; just keep in mind that this does not mean you necessarily have a handwired circuit board!
I would never recommend buying an amp older than 20 years to anyone when there are plenty of newer amps that sound just as good or better that don't have the inflated price on them. It all depends on what kind of music you're actually playing. If you want a gainy amp then a fender style amp is not the way to go. If you want a lot of clean headroom that you can shape with your pedals, then get a fender style amp.
If you've got roughly $1500 to 2000 USD to spend on an amp I would say look for a Dr. Z amp. They are amazing!
But since we're on the subject of vintage fenders I'll bring this up; I've said this already in another thread but I'll say it here again.
Paper in speakers is organic material, and in 30 to 40 years most paper in a combo amp (especially an open back like a fender) is going to be heavily comprimised by bacteria. So odds are if you get an old amp the speakers will either need to be re-coned or replaced. I've also played through dozens of old amps that need new trannies and/or caps so you're going to probably be replacing these in the first few years of owning a vintage amp if you don't have to do it immediately upon purchase. The problem with this is that in most cases you've just cut the value of the amp considerably as it's now no longer considered "all original" and has supposedly lost some of its vintage mojo.
Old amps are also prone to lots and lots of problems and you're gonna be hauling that thing in for repairs several times a year. Each time decreasing it's value every time you have to swap out an original part for a new one.
What I would recommend is buying a used vintage reissue blackface off of ebay, then having the speakers and trannies replaced (which remember you in all odds would have done with a vintage amp to begin with). What you'll have when you're done is a great sounding amp that is very reliable and is not going to have any problems for a very long time and that cost you less total investment then buying a vintage amp by itself with no modification did. This is what I did with my twin, and total on the amp I've spent about $1300 dollars which is roughly the price of a new reissue amp or silverface twin, and still a fraction of the cost of an originaly blackface twin.
And if you really wanted to, you could probably have a good amp tech custom order or make a handwired circuit board for you that exactly replicated an original 60s circuit board. This would be a lot more pricey then just sticking with what I mentioned above, but you would still have a great vintage sounding amp that overall still cost you less than a vintage blackface, and your amp will now have all brand new parts and will be much more reliable.
My two cents...
