Gene Leis Amps

[Tomm Williams]

Posted in a couple other forums with zero responses so asking here................anyone familiar with these amps? I read one opinion that they were made by Massie for GL. Have a line on one cheap but not sure what they are worth.

[WRGKMC]

In 1964, Gene incorporated Gene Leis Distributing with the aim of offering a full range of accessories and instruments. He designed or created a line of guitar amplifiers (which appeared under the names Rodeo Music or Gene Leis), guitars and accessories which were distributed through White Front, Montgomery Ward and other retail stores. He sold over 8,000 amplifiers before leaving the crowded amp market

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Leis

 

Here's one of their 15W single ended tube heads https://reverb.com/item/1181664-gene-leis-model-100tp-head-made-in-usa-by-massie It definitely looks like something Montgomery Ward would have sold back in their Mail Order catalog Days. Back in the 60's you only had a few options for buying musical gear. You either bought in small music shops, from catalogs or from news paper adds selling used gear. If you lived in a city you could buy from pawn shops if they had them. There was no internet of course.

 

Both Montgomery Ward and Sears used to send customers seasonal catalogs of goods selling everything from cloths, to pots and pans. The catalogs were broken down into sections just like a department store sells you different goods in different isles and on different floors. The Fall and Winter catalogs had sections on toys which every kid back then would scan through in the months preceding Christmas hoping they could get the toys in that book. The catalogs always had a page or two of cheap, low quality, mass produced musical instruments, everything from tambourines to trumpets. Parents usually bought more of the classical instruments so their kids could take lessons in school instead of renting higher quality instruments from the school.

 

In those same pages they had low quality amps and electric guitars. The only reason so many survived is because most would up in closets after kids discovered the low quality instruments had such bad action they were practically impossible to play. I used to buy them all day long at Flea markets for $5 each, fix them up, put new strings on, fix the wiring and maybe make $5~10 profit on them. No one would pay more then chump change for the amps or guitars because everyone knew what they originally cost, and they knew what the quality was because every kid in school knew someone who had one.

 

As far as what the amp is worth today? I suppose some deranged individual would pay $400 for this piece of garbage, but it wouldn't be me. My rule of thumb is $1 a watt for sold state heads. $2 a watt for tube heads, and up to $3 a watt for a tube combo with a working speaker. This one would rate $45 tops to any serious musician who know his gear. When they sell for more is usually to collectors because of their nostalgia, not because of their quality build or tone. You can easily buy a highly superior 15W tube amp at half the cost of this load of garbage.

 

 

This is what you call extreme budget build. Particle board case, low quality transformers, machine screws screwed in from the front to hold the chassis in place. This thing cost about $25 to build back in its day. They say, they don't make them like they used to but people today don't seem to realize they made garbage back in the 60's just like they make garbage today. I'd suggest if someone is gifting one to you, sell it like this guy is and take the money you can get from the first sucker who bites and run with the money. Buy something a heck of a lot better for that $400. You want to turn a profit buying used gear not be suckered into buying something just because its old. Amps don't get better with age. That's pure mythology. They simply become rarer as they wind up in land fills.

 

 

 

 

[Cornholio Farquarth III]

Reverb dot com seems to be overpriced for a lot of their stuff. $250 for a converted Bogen PA head? You could find these all days long for $50-60.