It is quite possibly the amp find of the century. An AC15 Twin believed to be John Lennon’s first Vox amp has been located and recovered for the first time in over 60 years, after an eagle-eyed Beatles fan and guitarist discovered it – disguised under a coat of black paint – in an online auction.
Lennon’s 1962 AC15 Twin, carrying the serial number ‘4583’, was purchased by the songwriter from Liverpool store Hessy’s Music in July 1962 for £123 and saw use in the Beatles’ shows at the Cavern Club and on early EMI sessions, including the recordings of Please Please Me and Love Me Do. It also features in some of the only footage of the Beatles performing at the Cavern Club.
The amp still requires expert verification but is off to a very promising start – with a matching serial number, correctly dated internal components, photographic evidence and the fact that only 30 or so AC15 Twins were produced in the era, all running in its favor.
Guitar World was invited for an exclusive look at the rediscovered amp, which was temporarily back in situ at the Cavern for a photoshoot – likely its first visit to Liverpool’s Matthew Street since Lennon parted ways with the combo in early 1963.
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The owner has asked to remain anonymous, but is represented by Nathan Hodgson (who brought to light Jeff Beck’s prototype Ibanez signature last year).
“The owner is recently retired and has been collecting for quite some time," explained Hodgson.
“He keeps it all low-key but he’s got quite a collection behind him. He spotted the amp a while back [in December 2023], on Gardiner Houlgate, an auction site.”
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The amp had been painted black and clearly needed some work, but the owner tells Guitar World that they thought, based on the low cost, it would be worth restoring and, in the end, they might have an authentic version of Lennon’s first Vox.
What they didn’t realize at that point was that it was Lennon’s first Vox.
“There was only a £1,000 reserve on the amp, so I asked for more pictures,” the owner told Guitar World, via email.
“When I got the pictures checked, with the specification [and serial number] in the Vox book, I suddenly noticed it was the same as John Lennon’s amp. I couldn’t believe it.”
The owner hoped they might be alone in requesting more images, given the only picture on the listing gave nothing away, but in the end it took a winning bid of £16,000 to secure the anonymous amp.
“I was getting outbid by others who must have realized it was John Lennon’s. I kept on bidding with excitement and some nervousness,” says the owner.
“In my head, I said, ‘This is John Lennon’s…’ I had a limit of £15,000 – must be mad, I thought! It hit £15,000 – I said, ‘£16,000 and that’s it!’ Once I bought it I was happy, relieved, excited. All these emotions!”
What condition is the amp in?
Guitar World got hands-on with the amp at the Cavern and it is in surprisingly good shape, given its 60-year journey.
In the pictures supplied to the owner (and, it appears, others) around the auction, the amp is fitted with Celestion Greenback speakers, but the owner has since sourced and installed period-correct Goodmans speakers as part of the restoration.
The black paint has also been removed, revealing the original fawn finish (fawn fell out of fashion down the line, so it seems that a later owner must have opted to ‘refinish’ it) and a new Vox diamond grille cloth has been fitted.
The amp was in full working order at the time of its auction purchase and remains so.
“It was like going back 60 years,” said Hodgson, of the first time he tried it. “You can imagine what it would have sounded like in the Cavern in the heady days of the ’60s.”
How do we know it is Lennon’s amp?
The short answer is we don’t yet, but the signs look very promising indeed.
Pictures of the amp and the documentation of the serial number (initially mis-recorded as ‘1583’ on the hire purchase agreement) have long been in circulation and noted by Beatles and Vox gear authorities Andy Babiuk and Jim Elyea, but the fate of the amp after 1963 has been a mystery.
The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein struck up a Vox endorsement deal in 1963, at which point Vox owner Jennings Musical Instruments paid off Lennon’s hire purchase agreement and supplied him with a new, larger AC30 amp in the process.
It is thought that Lennon’s first Vox would simply have been sold on at that point, probably through its London retail outpost, Jennings.
the beatles at the cavern club, 1962 pic.twitter.com/c85xGCVCfHMay 23, 2024
The present owner says he was told it was kept in storage for 20 years prior to the recent listing, but client confidentiality has kept the auction house from revealing the source of the sale.
One issue with vintage Vox amps is that some unscrupulous traders have been known to swap chassis between cabinets, so the cabinet and serial number could be original but the internals sourced from another amp.
Guitar World has seen the serial number plate on the cabinet and can confirm that it matches Lennon’s and looks period-correct (featuring the same hand-stamped format of other vintage Vox amps of the era).
We were not able to inspect inside the amp at the Cavern, but we have seen images and the owner maintains he has dated the components to May 1962, which would align well with Lennon’s July purchase date.
The fact it was listed as a generic Vox, with no serial number image on the listing – and that, alongside the present owner, other bidders also spotted the serial number after requesting images – also suggests this was not an attempt to sell it as a fake or present it as one now.
Likewise, the scarcity of 1962 AC15 Twin amps in the first place presents a potential barrier to any bad actors in sourcing the components to create a ‘fake’.
What will happen next?
Guitar World is told the present owner has not fully decided on the future of the amp and was initially intending to keep it, but a sale at auction now looks likely.
Wherever and whenever it sells, the owner intends to donate a portion of the proceeds to LIPA (the Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts, which was founded by Paul McCartney in 1996).
What is Lennon’s first Vox amp worth?
Famous amps are notoriously tricky to value compared to celebrity guitars, perhaps lacking cache in the eyes of non-playing fans. However, we do have a useful marker in the form of Rolling Stone Bill Wyman’s 1964 Vox AC30, which sold for $106,250 in 2020, setting a new record for amp values in the process.
“The owner knew it was significant but I don’t think he realized quite how significant it could be,” says Hodgson. “We’ve since spoken to a few auction houses who have said it could be £100,000 to £250,000 [approx. $123,000 to $320,000], maybe more.”
We’re inclined to agree. High-end celebrity gear valuations are all about iconography and it’s hard to find a bigger – and more universal – musical icon than John Lennon, or a more iconic gear pairing than the Beatles and Vox amps.
Then you can add in its history at the Cavern and early EMI Abbey Road sessions. Not to mention the fact AC15 Twins of the era are sought-after vintage models in their own right.
As such, the list of potential buyers is also enormous, with just about every big-name musician of the last 50 years having been influenced by the group.
There’s also a litany of extremely high net-worth fans outside of the music industry itself. Not least Jim Irsay, whose billion-dollar collection already includes Ringo Starr’s drum kit, plus Lennon’s 1963 Gretsch 6120 Country Gentleman and 1964 Rickenbacker guitars.
Lennon’s first Vox, used in the Cavern and in the recording of the single that brought Beatlemania to the USA? It’s not out of the question that this could be the world’s first million-dollar amp.
- If you know anything about the amp or its timeline – or would like to make inquiries about it – please get in touch on guitarworld@futurenet.com with the subject line 'Lennon Vox'.
