That is one of the most common questions that I get asked by our customers. The answer is
– everywhere. US, UK, Japan, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Finland,
South Afrika, New Zealand and many, many more places. From specialised guitar stores,
vendors, private sellers, off eBay, Rebverb.com, various adds and Facebook Groups and
from contacts who are enthusiasts and experts in the field and that have turned into long-
time friendships at this point.
Shipping and the associated import process is always a part of this and the shipping part is a
bit of a nerve-wrecking feeling every time something rare and valuable ships. For the most
part however, everything is fine and usually nothing is broken past repair along the way.
But as occasionally something indeed does go missing in the shipping process or damage
would impact the value of certain rarities too much to risk it, I get on a plane and pick it up.
And this is how I got my hands on a 1964 Marshall JTM-45 Maroon Block Logo amp with
original Radiospares Output transformer and the iconic “Clapton Knobs” (made by Pekalit).
Why are these called the “Clapton Knobs” – this is the exact equivalent of the Marshall 2X12
“Bluesbreaker” combo model That Clapton played with the Bluesbreakers and that was used
for the iconic “Beano”album: Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, which is the era where
people wrote statements like “Clapton is god” on the walls of London apartment houses.
And his combo amp featured these knobs, which are an indication for a 64 Marshall and
along with the Radiospares OT are the most significant trademarks of that particular vintage.
The amp came up for sale from a reputable seller from UK whom I trust and to top it off, this
specimen was brought to him by a former Marshall Amplification Director himself, who had
worked together with Jim Marshall and who owned this amp from the early 70’s. So the
provenance of this amp was unbeatable and I was sure, this one is the one to get.
This particular variation of the block logo – the Maroon color is extremely rare as they were
usually used during the white panel era by Marshall before they switched to the Plexi
panels. That means that this gold Plexi panel is literally one of the very first Plexis ever built,
while they were using up the last remaining maroon Block Logo’s after the introduction of
the new gold panel in 1964. Even in the legendary Kronenberg Collection there were fewer
Maroon Block Logo amps (2) than Offset variants (3) – imagine that…
Probably no one knows how many like this were built, but a dozen might be a good
educated guess. So there is no way I would risk shipping damage or it being lost in transit
altogether. I got on a plane, met the seller in person, shot a few pics at Manchester airport
and came back with the amp in a specially reserved seat on the plane, as other options
would all be way too dangerous to handle it. To quote Chuck Palahniuks Fight Club – this
was one of my most unusual and interesting single serving friends during a flight.
This amp will be released for ToneX, Cortex, NAM and Stadium soon and is one of the
biggest highlights of our 2026 releases. It doesn’t have a name yet and surely deserves one.
If you have some ideas, please write them in the comments below this post.
Stay tuned and rock on! 🙂