Yes, me. Not the Ivy League school mind you, but the vintage Fender Amplifier. You see, when I turned 13 years old, I got my first guitar, and the very first amp I got was a 1981 Fender Harvard for my 14th birthday, a year later. I know that is a long time to wait on an amp when you have an electric guitar but before I got the Harvard, I had a little plug in amp that went right into the input jack on my guitar, and worked off of one 9v battery. So the day I got to upgrade to the Fender was a great day. The Harvard is a 20 watt, solid state amp with one 10" speaker in it, and had the trademark silver Fender grill, two inputs, and the usual tone knobs. Plus this one had a Master Volume knob on it.
It was a great little amp for me, and it lasted a long time, providing countless joy for me sitting in my room rocking out to my favorite bands, and learning how to play their songs. I cannot remember exactly when it was that we parted ways . . . maybe the St. Louis days . . . but nevertheless, a while back I was in the basement looking for an old photo, and I came across a photo album from high school, and in that album, I have all kinds of other stuff pasted in, and one of those things was the registration card to my old Harvard amp. I had not seen this thing in probably 15 years! Well, I got super nostalgic that day, and vowed to find another Harvard at some point—to reassemble the tools—and rekindle the very beginning of me learning guitar.
I am happy to report, that after MONTHS of searching the internet, and a few near wins on eBay, I found one in Colorado at a music store, and it is mine. I actually saw this one a while back, but they wanted way too much money for it, and when I offered them what was fair price for it, I got shot down pretty quick, at which time I told the store manager to “enjoy hanging onto it for a while” because even though it is old, it is by no means an amazing sounding amp, or is it really a collectible amp. Except to early 40’s guitar gear geeks getting in touch with their teenage years.
On a random search recently, I went back to this music store site and saw that they had SLASHED the price on this amp, to within $20 of what they usually sell for on eBay, so I acted right away and bought it. I will proudly display it with my ProCo RAT pedal that I bought several years ago, which is just like the one I had back in the day.
Then, I will be only one piece of gear away from recreating the “rig” I had as a teenager, a DOD 575 Flanger, and once I score one of those, that will be most exciting to me. I found one earlier today, but much like the music store in CO selling the amp, these people with the DOD pedal want too much for it, so I made them an offer. We’ll see what happens with their response. So check back for a future post when hopefully I will have all of this nostalgia together, and then you can see the toys that helped me stay sane on so many rough days and nights while growing up.
Stay tuned . . .
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