Grouse Guitars, your favourite vintage guitar dealer
Grouse Guitars - previously your vintage guitar, bass and amp dealer (now closed). Click the 'back' plectrum to go back to the previous page, or click the "Grouse Guitars" nameplate above to go directly to the Grouse Guitars homepage.

Goldentone, Moody, Rex, Electravox, Flame, Vase...early Australian valve guitar amps are amazing. Previously vastly undervalued (our typical cultural cringe?), vintage Aussie tube amplifiers are now becoming increasingly sought after, for their tone, quality of build (this amp, like most of the era, is hand-built with point-to-point wiring now only found on the most expensive boutique amps) and character. This makes them highly collectable, and of high investment potential.

This is an interesting amp in that it does not display a brand anywhere. yet has very typical "Goldentone" traits, right down to its Plexiglass control panel. Yes, we even had our own "Plexi" amps! Even the cast footswitch to control the reverb and tremolo is very typically Goldentone. This amp would have been built in the late '60s, almost certainly by Goldentone, and then sold possibly under another brand. Possibly Maton? Is anyone out there able to shed more light on this mystery?

  1. John B has written to us and confirmed that this amp is identical to his badged Goldentone that he is presently restoring - see his entry in the Grousebook
  2. Mark from Brisbane writes "I have a small Goldentone combo amp from the same period with a RM shield on the grill. (I think it was Rose Music or Rose Morris?) My amp tech up here tells me that G.tone made amps under several different names. In the same way that Maton made Alver and Maxim for different large retailers that were around at the time.... Thought I might share that with you."
  3. Charles writes, "Dear Sir, This is a Goldentone amp alright, I vividly remember it. It was my first amp in 1965. What an amp it was! I had it matched to an Ibanez acoustic with an in-hole pickup. I still have my Ibanez to this day, but I wish I still had that amp!"

The tone is awesome. Around 15 watts from its push-pull output into a shallow 12" speaker. However, the real forte of this amp is the tremolo, which is simply delicious. There is also an external speaker connection, allowing the use of a more efficient extension speaker to get the most from this little gem.

Collectable and usable, either as a practice amp or for recording. In unbelievable condition - a real time capsule.

All original in every respect. And that includes the original, warm, GROUSE valve tone and tremolo. Even the valves are still the original Australian-made Super Radiotron AWV valves!! Check out the 'more pictures' link below.

Sold to Owen

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