The Wild and Wacky World of
Collectible
Effects
ing match that the auction has degenerated into. The final sale price often ends
at double or even triple the price that half
a dozen examples of the same pedal, of
similar vintage and condition, were sold
on eBay for in the past month. For some
reason, the vintage effects market seems
particularly susceptible to this type of consumer. So much for statistical probability.
Well, it seemed inevitable that the growing interest would catch the attention of
other major manufacturers. Over the last
few years we’ve seen reissues of the Foxx
Tone Machine (and several other original
Foxx pedals), Fender Blender, the Ampeg
Scrambler, the Vox Clyde McCoy wah, and
the Ibanez Flying Pan.
Vintage Reissues
Of course, this discussion of vintage and
collectible effects
would not be complete without addressing the recent phenomenon of vintage
effects reissues. For
many years, the realm
of vintage effects was
minor niche consisting of a small yet
rabid cult following of
crazed fanatics (of which I proudly consider
myself to belong). We did cover the vintage reissue topic such as it was in Analog
Man’s Guide. At that time, the source of
most vintage effects “reissues” was Dunlop
Manufacturing, who owned the rights to the
names Crybaby and Fuzz Face and, after
several years of a fruitful licensing agreement, had acquired full rights to the MXR
brand. We also covered the all too brief
early-nineties reissue of the A/DA Flanger,
and Ibanez had just come out with their TS-
808 Tube Screamer reissue.
Speaking of Ibanez, let’s not forget those
“ 9 Series” reissues—although
the TS9 reissue has
been with us since
the mid-nineties, it’s
been joined in the
last several years
by the Ibanez AD9,
CS9, and FL9. More
significantly however,
Maxon (the manufacturer of the original Ibanez line) has
done a more thorough reissuing of the “ 9
Series” pedals, in addition to their “Vintage
Series” and “Reissue Series” pedal lines.
And the reissues keep coming—at the 2008
Winter NAMM show, Fender introduced
their “Classic Series” line of pedals, featuring reissues of the Fuzz Wah, Phaser,
Volume/Tone, and Volume pedals. The way
this trend is going, there’s no telling what’s
next. The real question is will there ever
be a reissue of the EMS Synthi Hi-Fli? How
about the Ludwig Phase II Synthesizer? My
guess is, probably not.
“… the stompbox scene
is the Wild, Wild West of
the vintage and collectible
music gear market.”
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