This is the "new legend" (see below) Fender Super Champ amplifier. This particular amplifier dates from no earlier than late '82, but I purchased it in 1986. Pot codes indicate the 38th week of '82; the speaker date code indicates the 21st week of '82.
The owner's manual says, "The Super Champ is a completely new, all-tube, 18 watt musical instrument amplifier. It is compact, relatively light in weight and comes with a special design 10" heavy-duty speaker. It is also available with a Fender E/V, a specially designed speaker manufactured by Electro Voice."
The amp has the original factory-optional Fender "Special Design" Electro-Voice speaker (which looks suspiciously like the E/V "Force" 10" speaker). It has all Fender-labeled OEM tubes, including a NOS Fender 6C10, which Fender no longer OEMs (more about this below). It includes the factory Accutronics 3-spring reverb.
The tube complement is as follows: 7025 (low-noise 12AX7), 12AT7 (the tube chart lists this as a 12AX7A, but the schematic specifies a 12AT7), 6C10, 6V6GTA, 6V6GTA.
List price was $399. Electro-Voice speaker (instead of Eminence), cover, and footswitch were extra-cost options, which pushed it way over $500.
If it seems like I'm making a big deal of the footswitch, it's because it IS a big deal. The Fender Amp Book says this: "...channel switching...(was) achieved through silent optical switches rather than...relatively primitive and click-prone relays." (page 43) The best way the footswitch has been explained to me is this: the LEDs in the switch are the trigger for the switching, not the switch itself, which means: a) switching is virtually silent (good); b) normal footswitches do not work (bad); c) Fender discontinued this footswitch 16 years ago and has no plans to reissue it (bad); d) prices for the existing footswitches are extremely high (I've only seen one on the market in the last 10 years, and the guy wanted $150 for it - and he got it) (very bad); and e) even if you had the schematic and the expertise to make a switch like this, the parts cost would run you about $50 (bad). I finally bit the $95 bullet and had SmartParts (Fender Factory Authorized parts center) build me one.
Dimensions are 17.25" wide, 14" high, 8.5" deep. Weight is about 28 lbs. (I don't have a scale - but that's what the manual says).
So you want to know more about the Fender Super Champ?
From the book, "Fender Amps: The First Fifty Years" by John Teagle and John Sprung (Hal Leonard Books, 1995):
"1983 saw the introduction of the single-input Champ II, featuring a 10" speaker and completely new circuitry, including Master Volume and a Bright switch. Two 6V6 power tubes generated a whopping 18 watts, making this package surprisingly loud for a Champ. A fancier version, the Super Champ, included reverb and a hot-rod lead channel. "A new legend in the making!" was the company's prediction, and it has held true, as this short-lived variant almost immediately became sought after by those looking for a very small, loud, full-featured amp with good tone. A special-edition Super Champ Deluxe came equipped with a 10" Electro-Voice speaker, a lacquered solid oak cabinet, and special grille cloth, nameplate, and cover. These genuinely were special editions. The Champ II was quickly dropped, but the Super Champ survived until the sale of the company by CBS. Existing inventory was sold through 1986." (page 68)
From "The Fender Amp Book", by John Morrish (Guitar Player Books, 1995):
"In 1981, CBS decided it was time for new management at Fender...Roger Balmer...looked around for someone to inject new life into the amplifier line and approached a man called Paul Rivera, who had a long and fascinating history as an amplifier designer/guru - and little experience of corporate life."
"Like so many others in the Fender amplifier story, including Leo and Don Randall, Rivera had been a ham radio enthusiast...Playing guitar and mending friends' amplifiers, and working for a while as an apprentice at Ampeg, Rivera acquired enough expertise to open his own custom amp shop in San Diego, California, building massively powerful Fender copies for bass players and modifying Marshalls. Later he designed solid-state amplifiers for Yamaha and even built and sold a few MESA Boogies."
"In January 1981, he was hired by Fender, secretly, before joining officially in May. 'They hired me as director of marketing for amplifiers, to get them back into the amp business,' he says, 'because at that time they had a very small line of basically the same products they'd had since time began. They didn't have...anything that was really competitive in the market. They couldn't give the damn things away. Their sales were down to about 10,000 units a year, and for Fender that was like they were out of the amp market. It was expensive tube stuff that didn't even sound modern. Where was our Marshall killer? Where was the amp that the guy could go into a club and cut a date that had some popular sounds on it?'"
"The amps he now introduced were modeled on the customized combos he had produced in the past, incorporating multiple volume controls and channel switching. 'One of them, which was one from my childhood, was the Super Champ. The first wacko amp that I ever built was when I was a very young boy, I built a 70W Champ and used it through a 2 x 12in extension cabinet. So when I came on board I thought, marvelous, let's capture all those modified Princeton customers (like the people who bought Randall Smith's first MESA Boogies) and let's produce a little Champ that kicks ass.'"
"The result was the 18W Super Champ, using a pair of 6V6 output tubes driving a 10in speaker. A pull switch on the first volume brings in a 'lead' channel that receives a hefty boost by being fed direct from the reverb driver tube. Perhaps because of its origins in experimentation and modification, the Super Champ brought back some of the sense of fun that characterized the early years of Fender amplification. Uniquely among post-CBS Fender amps, it has achieved some appeal for the more open-minded of collectors and players." (pages 43-47)
"Paul Rivera claims that in the four years he was at Fender, amplifier sales rose from 10,000 to 125,000 units a year. 'The fact is, I did get them back in the amp market, because I built some cool amps.'" (page 51)
"The Super Champ, in particular, is of growing interest to collectors as well as players." (page 45)
The 5th edition (1995) of the Vintage Guitar Price Guide gives a value of a Super Champ at $350 to $500. I haven't looked at the 6th Edition (1999), but I would imagine it to be higher.
Ronnie Montrose and David Gilmour both use these amps.
There's been a lot of whimpering about one of the tubes in the Super Champ - a 6C10 Triple-Triode Compactron. "Oh, I can't find them; there's none left, 'cause no one makes them anymore! Waaah!" Sorry. Wrong. There are plenty of suppliers who carry 6C10's for as little as $5.00 each new! Many of the suppliers listed below have thousands of 6C10's.
Here's a sample URL list of suppliers who carry 6C10 tubes (current as of 10/99):
http://www.alltronics.com/tubes1.htm
http://www.angela.com/catalog/tubes/Guitar_Tubes.html
http://www.bc1.com/users/pacifictv/MAIN.HTM
http://www.broadway-music.com/catg/ACGU.html
http://www.cyclonemusic.com/Pwrtubs.htm
http://www.citenet.net/eltech/code/vactubes.htm
http://ctrlcom.com/esrc/esrc3.htm
http://hoffmanamps.com/parts11.htm
http://home.att.net/~esrc/esrcs2.html
http://www.kenselectronics.com/lists/tubes.htm
http://www.mindspring.com/~gies/price2.html
http://www.mojotone.com/tubes.html
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/vcsinc/tubes2.htm
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/vcsinc/tubes5.htm
http://www.rfparts.com/tubereceive2.html
http://surplustuff.com/tubes.html
http://www.teleport.com/~vibroman/parts/tech7.html
http://www.triodeel.com/tubes.htm
http://www.vacuumtubes.net/price2.html
http://www.vacuumtubesinc.com/new2.html
http://www.xmission.com/~cwest/BAParts/Tubes.html
Here's a picture of Eric Groff's Super Champ collection.