Silvertone 1457 Combo

this is one of the most kick-ass surf amps ever!! I now have 2 and use them with a fender tube spring reverb and Dick Dale can suck my cock!!! Tube rectifier means it has balls even though it's only about 8W. I have a whole bunch of vintage amps in the studio, supro, marshall, fender, ampeg etc, and this smokes them all... Having a small speaker means putting a large diaphragm mic close up is still cool at full volume, and when recording live with other musicians I sometimes put a little clip-on mic inside and close the case to cut spill. Cool as fuck!!

But for the fact I dropped one of the original 12AX7s (gutted!), my amps are all original, although I had to clean the vib strength pots on both, and they work great. I would use them for anything, although if you're going to gig one, like all vintage amps, get it checked out by a tech first to avoid embarrasment

It is super-cool!!

This is the Silvertone Model 1457 'Amp in Case' made by Danelectro for Sears Roebuck. It came with a Dano guitar featuring two "lipstick" pickups on a hollow masonite body. This model appears to be the top of the line in typical Sears "GOOD-BETTER-BEST" fashion. What sets it apart from the other 'Amp in Case' models is the vibrato feature which required an additional 12AX7 tube. Unlike the transformerless "radio tube" models, the 1457 has a proper power supply transformer, a 6X4 rectifier tube, two 12AX7's for preamp & vibrato, and a 6V6 power output tube in a simple single ended circuit that puts out probably 4 or 5 watts. This amp features two input jacks, a volume & tone control, and a vibrato speed & intensity control with a footswitch jack for the vibrato. The speaker is an 8" Jensen "Special Design" ceramic unit. I had to replace both input jacks on mine as the originals were bad. The case/amp is wood covered in a grey paper covering with a red felt interior and the amp chassis is black painted with round cutouts so you can see the tubes glowing. Very cool!

The amp stays fairly clean until you get the volume up over halfway, then it starts to breakup. It's not real loud, about like a Champ, so it's not going to shake the walls! It does what it was supposed to do and a lot of guitar players learned their first licks on them.

This amp is almost 40 years old & all I had to do was replace the input jacks which someone had messed up. That's all it needed! It has the original 40 year old tubes & it's still kicking. How's that for reliability!

Yeah right.

I've been playing on & off for 40 years and remember playing these back in the 60's. I bought this one as a nostalgia thing, but gotta tell ya it will get played often. You should hear that Dano guitar with my '65 VChamp! You can tell this one was played a lot & I sometimes wonder what smokey juke joints it lived in to acquire that tone mojo not to mention the smell!