1969 Park 75! Rare as hen's teeth yo!

 This was a fun one. A very nice Park 75 from 1969.

In my 32 years of doing this I've had the pleasure of working on exactly 3 Park amps from the old Marshall 60's plexi era. I did work on a 70's one at some point but that one wasn't as memorable.

The first was a Park 45 a guy brought to me in Portland about 20 years ago. He had just bought it at a pawn shop in Vancouver Washington for $300. A wild man apparently had dropped about a dozen ancient Marshalls there so I dutifully drove there right away and bought several. They were all in various states of dis-repair but little things like, in the Park 45 the slope resistor had been removed.

That amp with it's KT66 tubes left an impression! I wish I was the lucky man who popped in that day. 

The second was a Park 150 I bought from a shop in downtown Portland for about $500 or so around the same time. That one didn't thrill me as much but it was pretty fascinating. I recall it being somewhat like a Marshall Major but far more interesting. It had an early "overdrive" channel and was just too much amp for me. Think Ritchie Blackmore. I did like that channel though, more primitive than the few Laney Klipp amps I've seen. That Park didn't stay with me long, I re-capped the power supply and flipped it like a burger. 

I do know that Park was built by Marshall, but with subtle circuit changes as to not totally compete with Marshall. The coolest thing about that 150 is there isn't a Marshall like it. He seemed to be in a groovy experimental place building that one.

Then last week this beauty came across my bench. 

As far as I could tell, and I didn't bother with too much analysis as it was a "get it ready to sell" job and it was already in well maintained great health, it's just a 50 watt Marshall with KT88 output tubes and different cosmetics. Beautifully built inside and out like a good hand wired Marshall is. 

The cabinet is loaded with Celestion "Greenback" speakers and it's a cool bass cabinet. It sounds exactly as one with expect with a good Les Paul: voice of God or Satan depending on what style you dig. Or the voice of good LSD if that's your bag! I'm a big fan of these early Marshall amps. Nothing sounds like an amp pushed to the brink! Master Volume is great as this is too loud for me today but that being said, nothing beats the real thing! 

I thought the JJ KT88 tubes that were loaded in this one sounded pretty damned good for modern tubes. Of course I would like to hear it with the OG Genelex glass but.... that's a lotta dough.... Glad these were pleasing. Thumbs up.

This amp already had all of the filter caps replaced in the 90's. No hum, great bottom end, no need to change anything. I like it when they show up like this. In and out in no time at all.