This vintage 1946 Fender Princeton Amp with Maple woody cabinet and red grill cloth is a very rare piece of early Fender amp history (not for sale). The early woody cabinet Fender amps have become very difficult to find so I was excited to get to purchase this one. Believe it or not, this amp was found discarded along with some other stuff out by a dumpster. Can you imagine?
I'm always a vintage Fender amplifier buyer but I'm especially looking for the early woody cabinet amps like this one. You can contact me here to sell a Fender amp.
You can check out a few other woody cabinet Fender amplifiers here:
1946 Fender Model 26 Woody Walnut cabinet with gold grill
1946 Fender Model 26 Woody Maple cabinet with red grill
1946 Fender Model 26 Woody Mahogany cabinet with red grill
This 1946 Fender Princeton Amp has survived in pretty nice shape and mostly original except for a filter capacitor and tubes. It's an uncommon variation with no Fender badge on the back. It has a very simple set up with two inputs, no tone knob, and one gain knob with the on/off switch located within the knob. This was the entry level Fender amp out of three available at the time. Many, if not most of the Princetons, were discarded as obsolete after amplifier technology greatly surpassed it within only a few years.
Here's the inside of the chassis on the Princeton showing the large replacement blue filter capacitor and an odd shielding plate installed over top of the input jacks. The metal plate appears to have been made from a license plate and is soldered on. You can also see the brown chicken head knob which was used on Princetons and some larger amps at the time.
Here's the volume potentiometer code reading 304 4638 where 304 = Stackpole, 46 = 1946, and 38 indicates the 38th week. This indicates that the potentiometer was made the 38th week of 1946, but not necessarily when the amp left Fender's shop. It probably was sold a month or two later. You can check out How to date guitars with potentiometer codes. Or if you're looking for help with Fender amp dating, check out How to date Fender amps.
