Cheycaster

1970 4x12 cabinets grill cloth, which one for mine?

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Yo marshall fans! I'm new here as of today but have owned my 1970 100W Super lead and two 4x12 Greenback loaded cabs for 34 years now!! Long story short, when I bought this amp when I was 17, it had the grill cloth cut off of it (a trend in those days for home stere as well) I replaced what looked like to me then was almost a wheat colored looking basket weave cloth I bought from Carvin in the early 80's. Well after I opened up the boxes to pull the front out the wheat looking cloth was a grey or salt n pepper maybe??? What I thought was a wheat color was just the original faded from the hot Mojave sun. (We were the kings of the High Desert desert parties). So my question is: Anyone know where I can find out which cloth I need to restore my cabs to vintage factory specs??? Thanks in advance! I will have another question about these cabs I have tolex soon.
Blessings,
Chey

janarn

Welcome to the forum!
Those cabs has basketweave grillcloth originally.
Salt and pepper cloth turns to brown over the years,
so maybe a new brown basketweave cloth will look better
than a salt and pepper. (which it probably was originally)
Both RI versions of the basketweave cloth is looking very close to the originals.

MajorNut1967

marshall grill cloth large check

__________________
MJN1967 aka BA (Bad Attitude)

janarn

Large check in '70?
I have the original '71 catalogue. Still basketweave on everything.
The change from basketweave to large check was in '72/'73.

Pictures of an early 70's large check,
and a late 60's basketweave.

Attached Images

	'68 cab 001.jpg (96.7 KB, 17 views)
	66cab 001.jpg (89.1 KB, 16 views)

Cheycaster

Thanks !! I am pretty sure it was the salt n pepper basketweave now. Definatly not that big check stuff. Mine never had any serial number tags on them when I got them either. Also on my two cabs , the tolex was on mine like no other I have ever seen on the web or in stores or anywhere else. I retolexed the bottom cab in about 79 or so and whats different on mine is this:
The tolex was applied first to the bottom of the cabs and came up the side from the bottom about a foot and then, the upper half was applied and overlapped the bottom seam about an inch or so. In 32 years of owning this amp I have NEVER seen another tolex job like mine. Any ideas about the year??? I do have pix I took by taking off the metal handles and randomly shooting pix of the inside. It shows the frame and cone numbers. If I put em on here I bet someone could date the cabs for me. BTW, I paid $500 for the complete full stack in 75-76 for it!!!! I have seen on eBay cabs that were advertized as being 1970 cabs and went for like $5000 a piece!!!
again Thanks!
Chey

janarn

I don't think any 1970 cabs has been sold for $5000.
That's more than you will get for a mint pinstripe cab.

And I'm not sure that tolex on your cab (black levant) is original either.
My suggestion is to refinsh both cabs with the best levant
and basketweave grillcloth you can find.
Then you will have two refinished cabs that looks the same.
They are not original anyway, so the value will be the same,
or better.
Take off the backplate and take some pictures of T-numbers,
date codes, and the baffle. That will make it easy to date the cabs.

george76

this is wrong. the change to checkerboard was around mid 71 (I know because I used to own a 71 checkerboard cab.).

if you think about it the 71 catalogue was probably made in 1970 when everything was still basketweave.

a 1970 4x12 cab would probably have had black and white salt and pepper grillcloth. as has been said this fades over the years to brown.

I think if I was restoring a cabinet and wasnt trying to convince people it was original I would go with a new black and white salt and pepper, rather than brown. i think it would look a lot better. in my opinion of course.

theres a bit of basketweave on ebay at the moment, have a look at the middle pictures and you can see the change in the colour. still black and white around the edges, but has gone brown in the middle. heres the link...

click me

the value of a 1970 basketweave in good original condition would be about £1250. as yours isnt original it would be slightly less than that. the real value is in the speakers, so long as they are original and in good condition thats the main thing that matters.

Cheycaster

Yep, that salt n pepper basketweave is exactly what mine were so I know what to get now. I see all kinds of cloths that are SnP, basketweave, etc. but never was exactly sure until now. Salt and Pepper BASKETWEAVE is the stuff. I have a few Dr Z amps with SnP cloth but it aint what I had on my Marshall cabs. It's the "basketweave" stuff for sure. THANKS! And yes, I seen two old cabs that was up to $4600 a piece and a few days later I looked and they were sold. They wernt mint but super super clean and straight. With the right person and $ anythings possible.
Chey

george76

good luck getting that much for them, especially in the current climate.

check out these for a good price indicator:

Mark's Guitar Loft ~ amps

and that is from an established retailer. you would be very lucky to get those prices on ebay.

and those are all original grill cloth, tolex etc.

Cheycaster

Thanks for the Georges guitar loft info. No I am not even thinking about selling my cabs or head but just finishing up a small shop/shed to be able to strip them etc. and re-tolex them back to original specs. When I bought the whole full stack in 1975, the person I bought them from said they had been sitting unused for three years so I am pretty sure they had the original tolex on them. I was amazed at the prices those cabs brought on ebay about three years ago. I appreciate the info very much.
Chey

saventry

If you got a 1970 cab, then the salt & pepper basketweave is the stock cloth.

Geryhatrix

I bought a beautiful 100 watt lead full stack used in the summer of 1972 ($750.00 for the entire full stack with covers and castors!!!). The previous (original) owner bought it a several months earlier in 1972 and said he had to wait for a few months for his to be made with the salt and pepper basketweave grill since Marshall had already changed to the large chekerboard style and he wanted the basketweave. That timeline would indicate that Marshall was probably using the checkerboard grill for all of 1972 and maybe even earlier in 1971. BTW- My cabinet grills had a very specific smell to them that I loved. I would sometimes just smell the grills and associate this with the Marshall sound, look and general vibe it had.

Geryhatrix

Oddly, I have a mid 70s Hiwatt 4 x 12 cabinet with the salt and pepper basketweave grill and noticed that the design is 90 degrees from the Marshall. If the Marshall white weave material was going top to bottom, the Hiwatt white weave material was going left to right and obviously the opposite for the black material. Strange the little details we notice about things we really love!

Ken

WOW!!! In 1977 I saw a full stack of a 100 watt something....super lead? They wanted $850 for it. 4 inputs, no master volume is all I remember. It was all I could manage to buy my Les Paul Standard in that shop new for $350...

$500 for a full stack was a bargain!

Ken

MajorNut1967

Sorry JanArn, thanks for the correction!

__________________
MJN1967 aka BA (Bad Attitude)

Cheycaster

I have never been happy with any other cabs I have had through out the years as much as my bottom cab. It just has that tone and sound . So it will be cool to restore these back to there originall beauty!