THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

 DANELECTRO NIFTY-50 GUITAR AMP

A few years ago I went to Charleston, SC with my (now ex-) wife to visit family. We were there for a week and I was getting antsy. I wanted to go look around at some pawn shops and thrift stores in a new city...you never know what you are going to find. My wife and mother-in-law were doing their best to accomodate me but were getting a little over it. As we drove past downtown I spied one last pawn shop and asked them to pull over. Sitting on the shelf was this slightly dirty Danelectro Nifty-50 guitar amp. I was in a big hurry, so I just asked the guy how much and if it worked correctly. He said he'd take $35 for it and it worked perfectly. Deal. I didn't even test it.

As Scooby Doo would say, "Rut ro."

So, later in the day I get it home and clean it all up. It looks pretty nice but I do notice that one of the knobs didn't turn all that easily. We were flying home to SoCal that night, so I wrapped it up in a layer of bubble wrap and a few of my dirty t-shirts and underwear and put it in my big suitcase. It's not a large amp and this worked perfectly. It's solid state, so no worries about tubes. The next day I pulled it out and plugged 'er in for the first time. Hmmm. The volume control doesn't work correctly. Well, not at all actually. It's just on. At least it was on. The only way to control the volume was to adjust the tone controls. And the headphone jack didn't work.

Yeah, “works perfectly.”

Needless to say this amp didn't get a lot of use and I had a friend who was wanting to learn to play guitar. So, I gave him the amp to mess around with. I guess it's a good thing it was so cheap, but I have learned my lesson about testing stuff in pawn shops. I get the feeling that they aren't very thorough when taking items into the shop, so it's got to be on me to make sure it works. I wouldn't mind having another one of these one day...in fact there is one on Craig's List today and that's what spurred my brain to remember this one. Of course, the headphone jack on it doesn't work. Figures.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DECEMBER 21, 2008