Kalamazoo Amp Catalog - 1967

This is a scanned copy of a 1967 Kalamazoo foldout catalog. These appear on eBay every now and then for $10 or more, but this viewing is free (unless you just want to send me money 8^). Click on any of the images for a larger, clearer, more detailed JPEG. The JPEGs are mostly about 1100x1100 and vary in download size from 200Kb to over 500Kb.

[Catalog Cover Yes, the graphics date the catalog even if we didn't know when it had been printed. This was pretty much the in style, at least in suburbia. The freaks, hippies, and other radicals looked a lot wilder. I knew some people who danced like that, but they didn't usually have the pasted on smiles. 8^) Looking at the guitarist from the waist down, I can only conclude that he is a T1000 style Terminator.
[Catalog Fold1 The guitars were pretty much SG copies, except that the pickups and headstocks looked distinctly Fenderish. Whereas Gibson designed the Firebirds to look as unFenderish as possible, the Kalamazoo designers clearly had no such mandate. The slide switch is presumably the pickup selector. Much cheaper than the usual toggle. The whammy (excuse me, Vibrola) setup doesn't look real useful, but most of them in this era weren't that great. (How Hendrix stayed in tune I don't know!)

Various people have told me that the bodies were made from pressboard or fiberboard. They had bolt-on necks. The pickups weren't that great, but the necks were very nice to play. And I'm told the Vibrola stayed in tune much better than a Strat from that era.

[Catalog Fold2 The bass is pretty much the same as the guitars, only without a Vibrola option. Not sure what the black thing is below the strings, a pick stop, palm mute, decoration or what. The bridge doesn't look adjustable at all.
[Catalog Fold3 At last we get to the amps! Hmmm. Only the dancing guys are smiling; not sure what this means. The one guy looks predatory or stoned out of his gourd; that would explain his date's less than thrilled look! Or maybe that's her uncle on guitar, and her parents dancing behind her, and she's just embarassed. Other than the speaker magnet size, and the fact that you can use these amps with everything from guitars to accordions to projectors, the copy for the Models One and Two tells us nothing we couldn't have told from a better picture of the amp. OK, the size and weight are useful. Otherwise, typical, mediocre ad copy. Bleah. The solid state copy is more glowing, because solid state was New and Exciting, the Wave of the Future! Perhaps the girls and musicians were distraught at the fading of tube amps!
[Catalog Fold4 Bigger speaker magnets. 7 (or 9) transistors and 5 diodes! Yow! Yes, this was Cool Stuff in 1967. Kind of like when an amp today notes that it has 5 Pentium III processors!" I find it interesting that the Reverb 12 is described as having "Modern 5 tube construction". Perhaps because they had no solid state version of this amp. The bass amps are far more rare than the guitar amps, and this is the only place (besides the accompanying price list that I have seen any reference to the Bass 50. If you have one, I'd love to discuss it!

Eventually there was a solid state Bass model (no number), but that model apparently post-dates this catalog.

JPEGs scanned in by Bjorn Anger (keeper of the mighty Holiday for Strings Gibson amp pages). GIFs courtesy of the ImageMagick program. Notes on guitars courtesy of Mike Setzer and Jeff Engelmann.

Last updated: 10 December 2006

Copyright Y2K++, 2K5 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.

Miles O'Neal <roadkills.r.us@XYZZY.gmail.com> [remove the "XYZZY." to make things work!] c/o RNN / 1705 Oak Forest Dr / Round Rock, TX / 78681-1514