It seems as if everyone has used them at some point, including Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Oasis, The Strokes, Radiohead and White Stripes, to name but a few.

Fender guitar amps have been a constant in rock music, featuring legendary clean tones, lush spring reverbs and, in the case of the newest solid-state models, some of the best modeling and built-in digital effects available today. After all, with so many different models, it may get a bit complicated...

Another method of dating a tweed Fender Champ is by serial number.

On my 1959 tweed Champ amplifier, the serial number is located right in front of the fuse cap.

Combined with what we saw with dating a tweed Fender Champ by the tube chart and speaker code, I’m feeling pretty good that all of the various dating methods point to early 1959 for my amp.

I wish I could say that I figured all this out on my own.

If you see any data that is not listed here or notice any errors, for 1970’s and earlier Fender amps, please send us an email and we will update the chart.

Dating Fender Tube Amps by Serial Number, Part I by Greg Gagliano Copyright 1997, 20th Century Guitar Magazine. Well, we'll get to good parts, but first a little background information is in order.

We combined all of our information into a computerized database for this project and for the past 18 months have been slowly (sadly, very slowly) gathering information that we collect ourselves as well as from other people. What we need is the following: 1) Model name 2) Model number on the tube chart 3) Date code letters on the tube chart 4) Speaker codes (if speaker is original) 5) Transformer codes (if the amp doesn't have date codes on the tube chart) 6) Cosmetic features (flat/raised logo, tweed/tolex, blackface/silverface, rough/ smooth blond tolex, white/skirted knobs, TV-front/wide-panel, etc.) One very interesting and very important factoid has surfaced regarding the date code letters on the tube chart.

so let's go back a bit to have a look at the history of Fender amps, at some famous users, and find out which are the best Fender amps you can find today!

The Fender musical revolution started before the birth of rock music, just after the end of WW2.

In a BF Vibrolux Reverbs you could have either Jensen, CTS or Oxford, the BF Super Reverbs had Jensen, CTS, Oxford or sometimes JBL, the BF Pro Reverb had Jensen, Oxford or Utah, .

In the silverface era Eminence, Oxford, Utah and Rola were more often used and Jensen was phased out.