UPDATES
Older blog / update entries are now here.
January 2020
30th January
Currently on ebay, serial number 1883, last third of 1964. Valve rectified, slot voltage selector, electronics in good original form. The cab is a cut-down "Vox Sound Equipment Limited" Multi-link 4x12" from 1969.
25th January
AC50 serial number 1354, the earliest large box AC50 to have come to light so far. It was used at one time by "The Hootas", a band from Hamburg.
The box is of "type 1" with solid baffle, brown grille cloth, and a single fixing point on the top edge of the back board. A second type with vents in the baffle comes in somewhere in the 1400s. The corner protectors have gone. There is a plain aluminium plate for the speaker sockets. The original XLR cable (supplied by JMI with these amps) survives.
DATE CODES: all potentiometers are "BL" = February 1964. All mustard capacitors are "A4" = first quarter of 1964. Visible Hunts capacitors have: "WST", "HWT" and "HNT" = 15th, 21st and 27 weeks of 1964 respectively. The 27th week is June 29th - July 5th.
Further details and pictures will be posted in due course.
20th January
A rough print picture of "The Delinquents", mid 1965, an Aberdeen band - from Richard Houghton, "The Who: I was there" (Red Planet Publishing, 2017).
Tom Forsyth, a member of the band, relates that they met "The Who" in Elgin, who were there to play a gig - 6th May, 1965. After the gig, John Entwistle offered to sell one of the AC100s he currently had (presumably one of the two liberated from the RSG studio). Tom declined the offer as he had just bought an AC50.
The AC50 is presumably the one pictured below - small thick-edged box (diamond inputs) - on top of two T60 cabs. As few early AC50s were sent out from factory with two speaker outputs, it is likely that the back panel of the amp in the picture had been modified.
15th January (2)
A good colour shot of the back of one of the cabs the Beatles received from JMI in December 1963 along with their AC50s. Lennon's leg obscures the cutout for the Midax horn.
15th January
Below, the AC50 pages in the the Thomas Organ Parts Price List of April 1969. Amps imported to the USA in 1964 and 1965 will doubtless have been coming in for servicing in greater numbers by this time.
The list covers a good range of things: from transformers to minor electronic components. The neon bulb used in the bias circuit of early amps is there; also the Surgistor (made by the Werth Company), the analogue of the brimistor in the USA.
The last item is the escutcheon panel for the add-on Thomas Organ reverb, only available in the USA - see this page for amps, and this page for the Thomas Organ transistorised unit.
14th January
Below, a small article in "Record Mirror" magazine, 30th May, 1964. The Dave Clark Five had been issued with a new set of amplifiers and speakers by JMI in mid January, 1964, first seen at the Tottenham Royal (residency 17th Jan. - 23rd Feb. '64). At least three two-input thin-edged AC50s were provided.
It seems unlikely that JMI came up with (or were asked to come up with) another eight following the damage in Sweden, but some at least must have been allocated. These will probably have been of the new diamond-input thick-box variety, developed by JMI in late March '64.
"Record Mirror" magazine, 30th May, 1964.
The Dave Clark Five at the Tottenham Royal, February 1964.
12th January
Vox AC50 serial number 2681, still with its shop sticker: The Metronome Music Store, Mansfield, Ohio. Thanks to Andrew for the pictures.
8th January
"Radio Times", week of 12th-18th September, 1964. The Kinks pictured in their van with their equipment: visible, two Vox LS40 speaker columns in covers and an AC50 (or perhaps AC100) in its cover.
2019
19th December
Below, a detail from a picture of the Stones on stage, Folkestone, 17th May, 1964. Bill Wyman has a new thick-edged small-box AC50, perhaps consigned to him by JMI earlier in the month, or perhaps even in April '64.
18th December (2)
A new picture has come to light showing a thick-edged small-box AC50, presumably diamond input, in use on stage in mid May 1964. The earliest sighting previously known was late June '64 - see this page. More to come on this.
18th December
Below, a shot of the Stones on stage in the UK before July/August 1964. Brian Jones still has his Gretsch - set aside in August in favour of his new white Vox Teardrop.
The photo is *probably* by Terry O'Neill, as there is a very similar one definitely by him in the book "Breaking Stones. 1963-1965. A Band on the Brink of Superstardom" (Woodbridge, 2016), produced in collaboration with Gered Mankowitz. The event *may* be the "Pop Hit Parade" show, 31st May, 1964, at the Empire Pool, Wembley. The Empire Pool had sets of metal trolleys for stage use.
The most intriguing things though are the amps underneath the AC30 cabs - small box AC50s of some sort without VOX logos. Bill's cabs are stacked one on top of the other so as to save space on the trolley.
Whether the amps belonged to the Stones is impossible to gauge at present - JMI often provided loan equipment for events at the Empire Pool. Interesting nonetheless that the amps were sent out with plain grille cloth fronts.
15th December
Two AC50 plates, one from a guitar speaker cabinet stating its impedance as 8 ohms ; the other from AC50 amplifier serial no. 3385N. "N" is regularly found on AC30 plates, standing for "normal" voicing (rather than treble or bass), but there was no such thing as an "AC50 Normal".
The amplifier plate is doubtless a mistake that crept in at the registration stage. Speaker cabinets containing two 15ohm Fanes wired in parallel for a total of 8 ohms regularly turn up in late 1965 and throughout 1966, so the cabinet plate in the picture is correct.
3rd December
A detail from a picture of Cliff Cooper (founder of Orange Amplification) with his band, "The Rocking Chairs", in 1964 - from this page.
The AC50 amplifier section (not a T60 as Cooper remembers) is in a thin-edged box and has a BASS flag. No surviving amp in a thin-edged box has come to light so far with such a flag, or the remains of glue on its grille to indicate that one once existed.
The tiny sliver of diamond diagonal top right on the grille cloth is distinctive, and again, does not figure on any surviving amp currently known.
2nd December
A German flyer/pricelist from mid 1964. The AC50 is described as having four inputs - "4 Eingängen". The inset picture is of an AC80/100 however, not that that particular matters. JMI did sometimes take a fairly relaxed view of illustrations. The AC50 in the flyers issued between February and May '64 is actually a T60.
The dimensions given for the amplifier section are somewhat wayward. Width should be 19 inches = 48cm, not 45.
New Musical Express, 1st May, 1964. Vox advert for the Poll Winners Concert. The images were first used as an ensemble in the Vox advert for the Dave Clark Five in February '64. Note that the "A.C. 50" is actually a T60.