The 1967 Matamp Series 2000 amplifier used by Peter Green during his Fleetwood Mac days is available to purchase, via London’s Denmark Street Guitars.
The vintage guitar specialist posted a series of pictures of the guitar amp on its Instagram and has confirmed it is up for sale (although they invite contact as it is not listed on their site).
The amp appears to be in good order from the images and has clearly been well looked-after during its 55 year lifespan.
The covering, while understandably discolored, appears to be largely complete with no notable tears. The formica front panel also appears very clean and even the shots of its innards are notable, not just for the elegance of its construction, but also the lack the sort of grime you would expect from a model of this particular vintage.
The Series 2000 head offers large Boost, Drive, Depth and Volume controls, with smaller dials for the EQ section. There’s also a choice of inputs, offering Normal and Bright circuits.
Matamp was named after its founder Mat Mathias and his design collaborator Tony Emerson, standing for ‘Mat And Tony Amplifier’. Together they developed the Series 2000 and attracted the attention of the young Peter Green, who became synonymous with the brand during his late-’60s period with Fleetwood Mac – a time in which he recorded the likes of Albatross, Man of the World and The Green Manalishi.
The amp firm would eventually team up with Orange founder Cliff Cooper (his business was predominantly a retail operation at the time), to produce the Orange Matamp builds. This fed into the DNA of the Orange amp brand, but (as Matamp tells it) Mathias was reportedly not willing to enter the mass-production game and the partnership eventually ended.
Denmark Street Guitars says in its (somewhat minimalist) post that the amp was used in the studio by Green, but has not otherwise evidenced the provenance of the unit. It does, somewhat cheekily, use the hashtag #KirkHammett – no doubt hoping to pique the interest of the man who owns Green’s iconic 1959 Gibson Les Paul ‘Burst.
Metallica have a new album out next year and world tour ticket sales coming in. What do you think, Kirk? You deserve a treat, right?
