Fender Harvard

1959 Fender Harvard 5F10

The Fender Harvard is a vacuum tube (valve) guitar amplifier made by Fender from 1955 to 1961. The Harvard appeared only in a tweed covered "narrow-panel" cabinet, but in two different circuit designs, namely 5F10 and 6G10.[1]

The 5F10 model, launched in 1955, but not in time for the Fender catalog of that year,[2] was a 10-watt amplifier utilising a 6AV6 (from 1956 a 6AT6) preamplifier tube, 12AX7 phase inverter tube, a pair of 6V6GT power amplifier tubes, and one 5Y3GT rectifier tube, with a Jensen P10R 10-inch speaker. The amplifier had a very simple circuit and used only a volume and tone control. The Harvard was a fixed bias amplifier, using a selenium rectifier. The 5F10 was discontinued in 1961.

The later extremely rare or possibly even mythical[1] 6G10 Harvard used a single 12AX7, 6V6GT and 5Y3GT and, it has been speculated, was simply a Princeton circuit that could be fitted in left-over tweed covered Harvard cabinets after Fender had re-launched the Princeton in a Tolex-covered version.[2]

Unusual for Fender, the Harvard had no predecessor and, although the Harvard name was revived later by Fender, no descendants. The Harvard filled a gap between the student Champ and Princeton models and the professional Deluxe.[2] The 5F11 Fender Vibrolux is almost identical to the Harvard, but with added tremolo circuit, a second 12AX7 replacing the 6AV6/6AT6, built into a Deluxe cabinet.[1]

The 5F10 Harvard's dimensions were 16.5 × 18 × 8.75 inches (42 × 46 × 22 cm), and it weighed 20 pounds (9 kg).[3]

The most famous user of the Fender Harvard, in conjunction with a Fender Telecaster guitar, was Steve Cropper, who said that he used the amplifier for most of the classic recordings made with the Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.'s, including Green Onions and (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay.[4]

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 'Fender Amps: The First Fifty Years' by John Teagle & John Sprung ISBN 0-7935-3733-9
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 'The Soul of Tone, Celebrating 60 years of Fender Amps' by Tom Wheeler ISBN 978-0-634-05613-0
  3. ↑ Fender Amp Field Guide
  4. ↑ Steve Cropper interview 13 January 2009 Modern Guitars Magazine