The Fender Harvard is a

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...

(valve) guitar amplifier made by

Fender Fender may refer to: Transport * Fender (boating), a bumper used to keep boats from banging into docks or each other * Fender (vehicle) or wing, a part of a motor vehicle that frames a wheel well * Fender, a "cow catcher" on a tram, see Pilot (lo ...

from 1955 to 1963. The Harvard appeared only in a tweed covered "narrow-panel" cabinet, but in two very different circuit designs, namely 5F10 (1955–61) and 6G10 (1962–63).''Fender Amps: The First Fifty Years'' by John Teagle & John Sprung The "Tweed" 5F10 model, launched in 1955, but not in time for the Fender catalog of that year,''The Soul of Tone, Celebrating 60 years of Fender Amps'' by Tom Wheeler 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 single channel with a two-stage preamp, with just a volume and (treble-cut) tone control. The Harvard was a fixed bias amplifier, using a basic cathodyne phase inverter, but did include a selenium rectifier in the bias circuit. The 5F10 was discontinued in 1961. The extremely rare 1962–63 6G10 Harvard used a single 12AX7, 6V6GT and 5Y3GT; it was simply a way to use up leftover 50's

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

(5F2-A) chassis and tweed cabinets, after Fender had re-launched an all-new class AB Princeton (6G2) in a

Tolex Tolex is a trade name for a flexible, waterproof, vinyl material used as a cover material for books, upholstery, guitar amplifiers, cases, and other products. Tolex was filed as a trademark on August 30, 1945 by the General Tire, and was register ...

-covered "brownface" version. These Harvards sometimes even use old 5F2-A tube charts with the Princeton name scratched out; they can be identified by their Schumacher transformers (the same ones used in the new brown Princeton) and 1960s date stamps. Unusually 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 Champ is the short form of champion. It may also refer to: People * Champ (nickname) * Champ (surname) * Champ Butler (1926–1992), American singer * Champ Lyons (born 1940), justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 1998 to 2011 * Champ Se ...

and Princeton models and the professional

Deluxe Deluxe may refer to: Corporations * Deluxe Corporation, check printers * De Luxe Motor Car Company, an American automobile manufacturer Media and entertainment * DeLuxe Color, a brand of color photography used in motion pictures, especially t ...

. The companion 5F11 Vibrolux was essentially identical to the Harvard, but with an added tremolo circuit driven by one side of a dual-triode 12AX7 which replaced the Harvard's single-triode 6AV6/6AT6, and was built into a Deluxe cabinet. The 5F10 Harvard's dimensions were 16.5 × 18 × 8.75 inches (42 × 46 × 22 cm), and it weighed 20 pounds (9 kg). The most famous user of the Fender Harvard, in conjunction with a

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is an electric guitar produced by Fender. Together with its sister model the Esquire, it is the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes Paul had built a prototype solid body ...

(or

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

) guitar, was

Steve Cropper Steven Lee Cropper (born October 21, 1941), sometimes known as "The Colonel", is an American guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the guitarist of the Stax Records house band, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, which backed artists such as O ...

, who said that he used the amplifier for most of the classic recordings made with the

Stax Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface ( API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community. Traditionally, XML APIs are either: * DOM based - the entire document is read i ...

house band Booker T. & the M.G.'s, including

Green Onions "Green Onions" is an instrumental composition recorded in 1962 by Booker T. & the M.G.'s. Described as "one of the most popular instrumental rock and soul songs ever" and as one of "the most popular R&B instrumentals of its era", the tune i ...

and

(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" is a song co-written by soul singer Otis Redding and guitarist Steve Cropper. It was recorded by Redding twice in 1967, including once just three days before his death in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. Th ...

.Steve Cropper interview 13 January 200
Modern Guitars Magazine

References

{{Fender Harvard Instrument amplifiers