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Educate me about Marshall grill cloth

reswot

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Jan 22, 2004
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I've been searching for this info, but haven't been able to find it.... Can anyone give me a rough timeline of what type of grillcloth March was using on its cabinets during various eras?

From what I understand, there was the material on the offset JTM45 cabs, followed by the the pinstripe, but after that I'm unsure -- I may even be wrong about what I think I know?

So... When was the salt and pepper cloth used? How does this differ from the black and tan Marshall cloth that Mojo sells (and when was the latter used?)? When was the cloth with the large checks used? When did they switch to black cloth?
 

j45

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Jun 14, 2002
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This will be a "ROUGH" timeline as you requested. I haven't checked my Marshall book and just going by what I recall from the ones I've owned over the years. Pinstripe repaced the white cloth around 65/66, basketweave around '67, large checkerboard around 71/72 and the smaller checkerboard also appears sometime around 74, black around 79/80?. I could be off a year or so on some, this is strictly from past associations. i've never taken the time to sort out the exact years. There are some that are FINALLY making and selling very accurate pinstripe cloth now. Much better than the crap marshall has been using for their vintage reissue 'pinstripe' cabs.
 

skeletor

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the checkerboard changed to black in 75 in the UK. 79/80 in the US.
 

reswot

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Thanks guys... Anybody else have any more/different info?

A couple of other stupid questions: Is salt & pepper the same thing as basketweave? When was the cane grill cloth used?
 

LSGoCards7

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Apr 3, 2009
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Is salt & pepper the same thing as basketweave?

S&P fades to look brown which some refer to as basketweave.

S&P:

MarshallStyleSaltPepperV6000005.jpg


1960AHW.jpg


Faded S&P:

p1_uykz3gkdq_so.jpg
 
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mistersnappy

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FWIW, my '70 Basketweave slant cab is like the one in the pic: large logo with brown weave. Don't know if other cloth was available in '70 or if there is overlap. :jim
 

Wilko

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That's not "brown basketweave". It's just faded.

This is also faded basketweave:
1930_front.jpg


Here's "brown basketweave" it was/is called "cane"

Cane-grillcloth.jpg
 

shakti

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Jan 17, 2007
Messages
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The cane cloth was only ever used on the custom coloured cabs, to the best of my knowledge. Never on the regular tolex stuff.

And yes, there is a widespread misunderstanding that there were different types of basketweave on the regular production cabs; "S&P" and "two-tone" basketweave. If you ever see something that's often referred to as "two-tone brown", like the one in LSGoCards7s post above, it's a faded version of the black and white/S&P type basketweave. I have a '70 stack which looks like this. When you remove the baffle and look around the edges which are not exposed to light, that cloth is as pure black & white/salt & pepper as any cloth you'll find. For some reason this seems to be the case very often with '70 cabs, whereas most '68 cabs I've seen have faded less. Maybe they just got some rolls that had a different dye which faded more over the years, but all those cabs started out as black & white/salt & pepper basketweave.

And to go full circle, if you want to be technical about it, the "cane" cloth is in fact a basketweave type of cloth...and could also technically be referred to as "two-tone brown". But that would make too much sense, and people would be all confused... ;)
 

reswot

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Thanks, everyone. I'm trying to get a handle on this, as I'll be ordering a cab soon and want to get something that looks correct from 15 ft. away! :)

So black cabs would have salt & pepper (which faded to brown) and red, purple, etc, would have cane?
 

Wilko

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...if you want to be technical about it, the "cane" cloth is in fact a basketweave type of cloth...and could also technically be referred to as "two-tone brown". But that would make too much sense, and people would be all confused... ;)

The cane cloth is the same material as the basketweave, but only has one color. It's also the same material as the early black.

Oh, and yes, "salt & pepper" and "basketweave" was on black (dark green) cabs and red purple, etc. got cane.

I got some and faded and tinted (aged) it to look right on my cabs:
stacks.jpg
 

mistersnappy

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Very interesting. Well, for purely aesthetic reasons, I'm glad the salt and pepper on mine faded.

Course, I wouldn't mind if there were beer stains, no logo and missing-in-action tolex either...:rofl :wah :dude:
 

skeletor

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Dec 4, 2004
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the easiest way to check (if its a bottom cabinet) is to take out one of the front caster holders from the top. you will see the side edge of the baffle board when you take it out, revealing the original colour of the grill cloth.
 

Bygone_Tones

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Nov 21, 2014
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s-l1600.jpg
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Can anybody elaborate on the timeline of these two grille cloths?

Those are both reissue materials of the old 60's pinstripe material. The top one is a chinese made replica - used on modern handwired series bluesbreakers and 1974x etc (late 80's to present day?), and the bottom one is the more accurate and much more expensive eric collins replica. I think Marshall themselves have only used it on the 50th anniversary bluesbreaker and 50th anniversary 4x12 (released in 2012). Most people buy it to restore 1960's cabs.

The original pinstripe material was used from around mid 1965 to early 1968.
 

Bygone_Tones

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The cane cloth was only ever used on the custom coloured cabs, to the best of my knowledge. Never on the regular tolex stuff.

And yes, there is a widespread misunderstanding that there were different types of basketweave on the regular production cabs; "S&P" and "two-tone" basketweave. If you ever see something that's often referred to as "two-tone brown", like the one in LSGoCards7s post above, it's a faded version of the black and white/S&P type basketweave. I have a '70 stack which looks like this. When you remove the baffle and look around the edges which are not exposed to light, that cloth is as pure black & white/salt & pepper as any cloth you'll find. For some reason this seems to be the case very often with '70 cabs, whereas most '68 cabs I've seen have faded less. Maybe they just got some rolls that had a different dye which faded more over the years, but all those cabs started out as black & white/salt & pepper basketweave.

And to go full circle, if you want to be technical about it, the "cane" cloth is in fact a basketweave type of cloth...and could also technically be referred to as "two-tone brown". But that would make too much sense, and people would be all confused... ;)

Brown two tone does exist, but it was only used on purple cabs to my knowledge, and it is possibly the same stuff used on some super early coffin logo cabs made around late 63 and early 64.

Ti3ouUb.jpg
 

David.247

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Jan 22, 2015
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Those are both reissue materials of the old 60's pinstripe material. The top one is a chinese made replica - used on modern handwired series bluesbreakers and 1974x etc (late 80's to present day?), and the bottom one is the more accurate and much more expensive eric collins replica. I think Marshall themselves have only used it on the 50th anniversary bluesbreaker and 50th anniversary 4x12 (released in 2012). Most people buy it to restore 1960's cabs.

The original pinstripe material was used from around mid 1965 to early 1968.
So when you see pictures from the 70's I.E. Free, Led Zeppelin These are the original pinstripe?
sddefault.jpg
jimmy_page_sc.jpg

7e0b43dd120676d99f8704b75e02f752.jpg
 
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Bygone_Tones

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Nov 21, 2014
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So when you see pictures from the 70's I.E. Free, Led Zeppelin These are the original pinstripe?
sddefault.jpg
jimmy_page_sc.jpg

7e0b43dd120676d99f8704b75e02f752.jpg

Those are basketweave.

Marshall used basketweave from early 1968 through to April 1971. The pinstripe was earlier - mid 1965 to early 1968.

What you have to remember is the basketweave material was black and white originally, so it looks grey in old photos and film footage. That's how it looked originally. It only goes brown with age.

Here is a piece removed from a cab. Notice how the edges and under the logo are still black and white where it hasn't been exposed to the elements:

tENXWc3.jpg
 
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