This beautiful wooden cabinet amplifier with red grill cloth and metal front strips was made by the Fender Electric Instrument Co in late 1946. The company was established in 1946 by Leo Fender immediately after Doc Kaufman left the K&F brand. The first run of amplifiers for this new company consisted of three models: the Princeton, the Model 26 "Deluxe", and the Professional. Their lacquered wood cabinets and combination metal strip and cloth grills made them easy targets for the collector nick name of "woody" amps.
Fender's first line of woody amplifiers came in a few different cabinet woods and grille cloth colors. This 1946 Fender Model 26 woody amp comes in the most common variation of Maple cabinet and red grill cloth. Walnut and Mahogany were also used to construct the woody cabinets and purple and gold were sometimes used for the grill cloth. You can check out a few other Fender woody amp variations I've had here:
1946 Fender Model 26 Walnut with gold grill
1946 Fender Model 26 Walnut with red grill
I'm always a vintage Fender guitar amp buyer but I especially love the Woody cabinet amps. Contact me here to Sell a Fender Guitar Amp
This Fender Model 26 Deluxe amplifier bears the speaker manufacturing date of the 22nd week of 1946 and serial number 395. Somehow it made it through life without losing its original canvas cover! I was thrilled to own it for a short time before it moved on to bigger and better things.
The cabinet of this Fender woody amp is very oddly constructed with crude stubby slot head screws and a right angle plate. According to Richard Smith's Fender: The Sound Heard 'Round The World, Doc Kauffman took the box cutting jig and saw home when he left Fender. Leo used crude angle iron to assemble the Woody amplifiers instead. The chassis has no circuit board but instead is truly point to point wired.
As a Fender amp collector, I'm always on the hunt for the nicest examples of all variations of the Fender woody amplifiers. I love the Model 26 and the Princeton amp, but I'm especially looking for the woody era Fender Pro amp with 15" speaker. If you have a vintage Fender amp and are looking for a passionate buyer then I'd be happy to take a look. You can contact me here to sell a Fender amp.
