“It was like going back 60 years”: Could this be Lennon’s first Vox?

An amp that is believed to have been used by John Lennon during the Beatles’ Cavern days has been rediscovered after over 60 years.

It’s a Vox AC15 Twin and whilst it’s yet to be absolutely verified by an expert it looks likely to be the guitar amp Lennon purchased from Hessy’s Music in Liverpool in July 1962. It has the same serial number – 4563 - and corrected dated internal components. The fact that AC15s are exceedingly rare – apparently only 30 were produced during this era – weighs in its favour too.

If so, it’s the same one that Lennon used for the Beatles’ first EMI recordings and thus can be heard on Love Me Do and Please Please Me. It was also used when the band played the Cavern during the second half of that year.

Lennon owned it for less than a year. In 1963 Brian Epstein inked an endorsement deal with Vox, at which point Vox’s owner Jennings Musical Instruments paid off the Lennon’s hire purchase agreement and supplied him with a spanking new AC30. The AC15 was probably sold on at that point.

Where it went to after that we don’t know, although its new owner has said he was told it had been kept in storage for over twenty years prior to its recent listing.

The owner wishes to remain anonymous, but apparently spotted it on an auction site last year. It had been painted black and needed some sprucing up but was in full working order after more than sixty years. “It was like going back 60 years,” said Nathan Hodgson, a representative of the new owner 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.”

In an interview with our friends at Guitar World , the owner said that whilst they thought it might be a version of a Lennon amp when they investigated further alarm bells starting ringing: “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.”

In the end, the price they paid was a mere £16,000, which is a fraction of its possible resale value. Given that a 1964 Vox AC30 that Bill Wyman once played went for over £106,000 in 2020, then you could possibly double that figure.

“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, maybe more.”

And when it is finally sold on, the owner has stated that they intend to donate a portion to LIPA (Liverpool Institute Of The Performing Arts) which was founded by Paul McCartney in 1996.

• If you know anything about the amp or its timeline – or would like to make inquiries about it – please get in touch with Guitar World at guitarworld@futurenet.com with the subject line 'Lennon Vox'.