Back in 2012 Fender introduced their Pawn Shop Prize amplifier line up. These included four tube-based amplifiers that were offered that year. None of which resembled a Fender product, and none even have the Fender logo.
The idea that the designers had in mind were amplifiers, perhaps from Montgomery Ward or Valco that you may find in a pawn shop.
All of these amps were designed by Bruce Zinky. He worked for Fender for a number of years and was responsible for some of Fenders classic amplifiers including the Pro Junior, the Prosonic, the Tonemaster, the Vibro King and the Vibrolux Reverb.
When he left Fender Zinky set up his own company and produced amplifiers under his own name. You may remember Smokey Amps. These were tiny 1 watt solid state amps that were originally placed in a cigarette package. However I am digressing.
At the time Zinky was tasked by Fender to come up with the Pawn Shop Prize amplifiers. These went along with their Pawn Shop Prize guitar line up. The amps and guitars were featured at NAMM in 2012.
I would say the most popular amp in the series was the Excelsior. This amplifier pumped 13 watts of class AB power into a 15-inch Fender special design speaker. The control panel was very minimal. A volume and a tremolo knob, plus a Bright/Dark switch.
The tube configuration included a pair of 6V6 power tubes and two 12AX7 preamp tubes, one controlled the tremolo circuit. On the used market The Excelsior is selling for an average of $375 USD. The 2012 version came only with a brown covering. The 2013 version was offered with colored covering and sold for around $100 more.
The Excelsior amplifier brings to mind the 1960’s Supro Thunderbolt amplifier I used in 1965. The Supro had a 15-inch speaker, and had more power, rated at 35 watts based on its twin 6L6 power tubes, a 5U4 rectifier, and a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes.
The Thunderbolt was marketed as a bass amp, however it was inadequate due to the baffle buzzing. However it was a wonderful guitar amplifier. Controls were very basic as it only had a volume and tone control.
The Pawn Shop Prize Excelsior gives out a clean sound with the volume going up to one third volume, after that it breaks up considerably. If you are looking for a Blues amp, you may want to consider the Excelsior.
The Fender Pawn Shop Vaporizer was an interesting amp. This amp had a pair of 10-inch Fender Special Design speakers and it pumped 12 watts of AB power from its twin EL84 power tubes. The preamp section was solid state.
The control panel included volume, tone, and reverb knobs, and inputs for normal and bright. One trick this amp accomplished with its reverb knob allowed the player to turn off the volume and turn up the reverb. This produced an ethereal sound. (You could do the same on a Silvertone Twin Twelve)
The bonus feature on the Vaporizer was the footswitch that was included. Depressing this bypassed the volume and tone circuit producing a raw gritty overdriven tube amp sound.
As I recall Music Man amps and some Peavy amps were designed with a tube power amp and a solid-state preamps. This caused those amplifiers to have a little more headroom.
This was a class A amplifier utilizing a single 6L6 power tube and a pair of 12AX7 preamp tubes producing 9 watts of power. This amp had a Fender special design 12-inch speaker.
The Ramparte was a two channel amp that had a "Cool" section and a "Hot" section with chicken head knobs. Minimal controls were a just a volume knob for each channel and inputs for each channel.
The Cool section was voiced to produce a clean tone that went from warm and clean to mildly gritty, while the Hot section delivered killer overdrive tones. There were no tone or EQ controls.
On the used market these amps are selling for $300 to $380 USD.
The last Pawn Shop Prize amplifier is the Greta. This tiny amp looks more like a retro Japanese radio than a guitar amplifier. It produces a mere 2 watts of class A power driven by a single 12AT7 tube for the power section and a single 12AX7 preamp tube into a tiny 4-inch speaker.
The Greta amplifier was designed as a practice amp, but can be mic'd for recording purposes. It has one channel with a volume and tone control on the amps front with an old school VU meter.
On the back side there is a guitar input, a 1/8" auxiliary input, a line out and an external speaker output plus the on/off switch. Despite its size some player like this little amplifier.
I am seeing The Greta being offered for $220 to slightly over $330 on the used market. If you are looking for an inexpensive and unique tube amplifier the Fender Pawn Shop series might just be for you.
To be fair, I looked on Reverb to see if there are any used tube amplifiers that are available for under $400.
Another option is the Fender Super Champ XD which can be purchased for around $250 USD.
The Fender Pawn Shop Prize series of amplifiers were truly unique creations from a time when the Fender Musical Instrument Company was willing to think outside of the box.
While the Blues Junior and Pro Junior were manufactured in Mexico, all of the aforementioned amplifiers are of Chinese origin.
On Facebook I have met the most wonderful guitar artist. She is perhaps the only person I have ever encountered putting unique designs on guitars. Of course George Harrison, painted his Stratocaster (Rocky) and Eric Clapton had a Dutch design firm create the artwork on his 1964 Gibson SG (The Fool). However Jennifer's guitar artwork is unique, extraordinary and one of a kind.
Jennifer Armstrong resides in Glasgow Scotland. She puts her unusual artwork on mainly electric stringed instruments that she acquires and then sells them for a most reasonable price.
As far as I can tell, Jenn is perhaps the only artist currently doing this. There are other people that have added their art to guitars, but Armstrong's guitars are individually done and her output is amazing. Jenn's designs are generally based on symmetrical shapes, although some of her work includes abstract shapes. She takes her time on each instrument. In my opinion she is brilliant.
Jennifer started out as an artist painting abstract portraits but within the last four years has found a real niche in painting electric guitars and basses.
Most of the instruments she offers are Telecaster, Flying Vee, Les Pauls, and Strat knockoffs that she collects from her contacts at trunk shows, or through word of mouth. She does such a lovely job of redesigning the finish on these instruments.
Elwood Francis, the current ZZ Top bass player, owns one of her creations. This was done as a Christmas present from Elwood's wife. She sent a Japanese Strat body to Armstrong.
She says most of her creations are sold in the USA, although she will ship anywhere. Some of her creations have been shipped as far away as Australia.
Jenn’s work brings to mind a couple of guitar finishes that Fender used in the past. The first unusual Fender guitars was done in the late 1970’s.
At this time Fender/CBS had drastically modified it’s existing Stratocaster. Sales were down. This was about the time when Eddie Van Halen attracted attention with his home built Strat style guitar with its unique finish.
An artist named Darren Johnson had developed an unusual finish for drum sets that resembled the swirled multi-colored bowling balls that became popular in the 1960’s. Mr. Johnson sent a picture of a mockup he did of a Stratocaster body to Fender. His response was an invitation from Fender to the NAMM show. Fender was so impressed that they sent him 75 bodies with a coat of white primer and asked him to finish them.
Fender referred to them as “Marbled Finish”, but to most of the guitar community these were known as Bowling Ball Stratocasters. Bowling Ball Strats were highly sought after, so in 1987 a second run was offered.
In 1997 Eric Clapton appeared at a Grammy Award concert playing a Stratocaster with an unusually designed finish. Clapton had become interested in street art and ask John “Crash” Matos to design a guitar for him. Eventually Crash designed 3 different bodies for Eric.
In 2004 when Fender opened its custom shop they sent 50 bodies to the artist to put his touch on them. The guitar playing public referred to these as Crashocasters.
Then in 2003 Fender came out with an unusual body finish for the Stratocaster. When I was a kid most traveling carnivals had a booth where you could create your own art by placing a square piece of white cardboard on spinning wheel and drizzling different colored paint on the board.
This was the premise for the Splattercaster. These were all Mexican built Stratocasters so they sold at the time for only around $300. The bodies were placed on spinning wheels and the paint colors; Violet, Daphne, Lake Placid, and Midnight Blue Swirl over Olympic White and Spun to perfection. Fender had a limited run of 500 guitars in 2003 and 2004.
Perhaps Ms. Armstrong might consider sending Fender (or another company) some samples of her work. You never know?
I have to say that Jennifer Armstrong is the the most unique and perhaps the only artist currently putting her custom artwork on guitars. For anyone wanting a truly unique instrument that stands out I encourage you to check out her site and get in touch with this remarkable lady.
I really don’t care who you voted for in the 2024 Presidential election or even why, but what is important is the news that the Gibson Guitar Company has threatened with a cease-and-desist order to Donald Trump for copyright infringement.
On it's webpage16 Creative states it is the world’s first Veteran owned, multi-focused branding agency, we are privileged to work with an iconic lineup of entertainers, athletes, businesses, Veterans and military organizations to bring their brand and legacy to life through strategic marketing campaigns and branded merchandise. The company is mainly in the business of offering logo based promotional merchandize.
Apparently this company was hired by the Trump campaign to put the Trump brand on guitars. These limited-edition instruments range in price from $1,000 to $11,500.
Only the high-end models are autographed by President Trump.
At the time Ibanez was turning out some very convincing replicas of a variety of Gibson style guitars. Some of these looked quite like Les Paul style guitars.
The Eastern District Philadelphia based Federal Court did not get a chance to rule on the case as it was settled out of court. The case was settled between the parties with the agreement that Ibanez could duplicate the body style but could not use the same headstock shape(s) found on Gibson instruments.
With all of the Asian based Gibson-style guitars sold on the web, I hardly think that Gibson can use their argument. Ironically, the Trump Guitars are probably manufactured offshore.
In other Gibson news the Federal Government seized a shipment of 3,000 Asian manufactured guitars in a Los Angeles based seaport. All the instruments bore the Gibson logo.
These guitars would have been worth almost 18 million dollars had they not been discovered to be counterfeits.
Nathan (Nat) Daniel was an immigrant to the United States. As a child, his parents fled from Lithuania to the United States to escape the persecution of Jews during the czarist Russian era. He had to repeat the first grade as he did not speak English when he arrived.
Daniels was gifted with a real desire to learn, so it was during his high school years that he experimented with electricity by building crystal radio sets. He became fascinated by radio and its inner workings.
In the 1930,’s he dropped out of college and made a living building amplifier of his own design. At first, he built these, in the bedroom of his parents’ apartment.
His first customer was the Epiphone Musical Instrument Company.
During WWII, Daniels worked as a civilian designer for the US Army and devised a way to equip the radio receiver/transmitter in military vehicles with a system that made them unaffected by engine noise.
After the war, he set up shop in Redbank, New Jersey using the name Danelectro. He went back to work building amplifiers for the Epiphone Guitar Company.
His big break was when he became associated with Sears and Roebuck, and Montgomery Wards when he was contracted to build amplifiers to be sold under each stores brand names. Respectively the brand names used were Silvertone and Airline.
It was in 1954, the Sears Company asked if he could build an affordable guitar. Although he was not a luthier, he said yes he could build it What he came up with is the Danelectro/Silvertone instrument that for some of us, may be the first guitar we owned.
The guitar sold for $38.95 and the amplifier was offered at $39.
Though it appeared to be a solid body instrument, the Danelectro guitar was ingeniously designed. It was built on a poplar wood frame. A neck block ran through much of the body, which allowed the bridge to be attached, be it fixed or vibrato. The body struts and the block were stapled together. In later years, the neck block was shortened, and a wood block was glued to the inner side of the guitars back. This anchored the bridge.
What made Danelectro guitars unique was the material used for the body. Both the top and bottom of the guitar was made of Masonite, with a Formica covering. The neck, which was made of aged poplar, was topped with a rosewood fretboard and a metal nut.
Daniel devised a system of using an automated table saw to precisely cut the necks. Though the neck did not contain an adjustable truss rod, Daniel had placed a ¾” aluminum rod in the neck to prevent warpage. He studied and determined that an inexpensive steel rod provided better reinforcement than an adjustable truss bar.
Later twin steel I-beams replaced the rod. His goal was that the neck should never need to be adjusted. The nut was made of aluminum and held in place with a screw.
He based this design on the formula of Young’s Modulus of Elasticity, which he used to determine that even the cheapest steel rods provided the resistance the necks needed.”
The tuners he used were inexpensive, but sturdy. Employing rods in the neck, allowed the neck more slender than other guitars of the day, providing ease of playing, which was especially good for younger players.
Once the frame was made, white glue was brushed on its perimeter and adorned with rippled cloth tolex tape. The poplar body frames were topped with a covering of Masonite on the front and back. A melamine pickguard on the surface of the Formica top provided the final addition to the body.
His pickups were unique and housed in lipstick tubes provided great shielding. The slight gap between the two ends prevented loss of high frequency response. The housing for the pickups were originally built with surplus lipstick tubes, that probably came from the Max Factor Cosmetics Company. The pickup’s coil wraps around an Alnico 6 bar magnet, which in turn is wrapped in tape—usually cellophane tape on vintage units—and inserted into the metal tube casing.
Unlike Fender or Gibson pickups, Danelectro pickups do not have a bobbin. Lipstick pickups tend to be low-output and have a jangly tone. Danelectro pickups used Alnico 6 magnet and 42 gauge wire.
They were machine wound. with plain enamel, like the original vintage pickups. Daniel scatter wound them—the neck at 3.85k and the bridge at 4.3k.
Daniel's guitars came with one or two pickups. On the two pickup models, he wired the pickups in series, which gave the guitar a boost in sound when the two pickups were both in the on position,
Most electric guitars with two pickups are wired in parallel. This is what you are used to hearing from say a Strat. Parallel wiring adds transparency and clarity to the tone.
However Nat Daniel wired the pickups in series which produces a longer path with increased resistance, adding volume while preventing the highest frequencies from getting through.
With series wiring, the output of one pickup goes into the input of another pickup, while with standard parallel wiring, each pickup takes its own path to the output. Besides being noticeably louder, series wiring emphasizes low and midrange tones, and this is a perfect combination to drive any tube amp into saturation without the help of a booster.
The pickup controls were two sets of concentric knobs, with the volume on top and the tone on the bottom.
The very first Daniel Silvertone electric guitar, model 1375. was offered in 1954. It did not have the lipstick tube pickups, although the inner workings were similar. The pickups on these first models were routed into the wood.
This was followed in 1955 with the model 1357, which had one lipstick pickup, and model 1359, which had two pickups.
In subsequent years, Danelectro purchased lipstick casings from a cosmetics manufacturer, then sent to another business for chrome plating.
The knobs and switches were outsourced from another manufacturer.
Most Danelectro guitars utilized an interesting, fixed tailpiece. This was a trapezoidal metal unit attached to the wood block in the body by three screws. The saddle was just a thin strip of rosewood.
The vibrato unit on a few Danelectro/Silvertone guitars was similar, except the metal plate moved on it self, in the same manner as Gibson’s vibrola unit.
The biggest reason Sears and Wards preferred Daniel’s product was its low cost and high quality. For most working families it made sense to buy junior a $40 Silvertone guitar, instead of a new Fender Stratocaster, which cost $229.50 in 1954.
The shapes of the guitars and basses were well thought out and somewhat mimicked the Gibson styles with one or two cutaways.
The exception was the Longhorn guitar and bass. I always thought the body looked like a lyre-harp, with its twin horns and large soundboard. Around 1966 or 1967, there was an American TV show called Shindig.
I was fascinated by the bass player’s instrument. It was a Danelectro longhorn bass. It had a short scale and an antiqued finish. The body was an off-white colour with a gilded perimeter.
Danelectro guitars and basses had several headstock styles. Many Sears/Silvertones' came with the “dolphin” style six-on-a-side (or four-on-a-side for bass) headstock.
The other style came to be known as “the Coke bottle” headstock, due to the appearance being similar to the shape of a 6 ½-ounce Coca-Cola bottle.
Danelectro labeled guitars had DANELECTRO written in white lettering on the headstock, while the Silvertone guitars came with a silvered plastic emblem that spelled SILVERTONE, which was glued to the headstock.
During the 1950's through the mid 1960's, 90% of Daniel’s guitars and amplifiers sold through Sears or Montgomery Wards. Though most guitarists knew who Leo Fender was, but few were aware of Nathan Daniel, because his name was not on the products.
I am not sure if Nathan Daniel was tired of the business or saw the end of the 1960’s guitar craze, but in 1966 he sold to MCA, which was a talent agency and record conglomerate, that thought they could make a go in the guitar business.
This company's business strategy was to forgo the successful business as jobbers and deal directly with music stores. As part of the sale, Nathan Daniel retained the rights to the guitar designs, however MCA acquired the Danelectro name, logo and patents for the stacked potentiometers. Because of this MCA needed a new product line.
This is when MCA came up with the name "Coral." Several of the Coral instruments designed by Vinnie Bell gained a respectable reputation. Bell designed versions of the Coral Electric Sitar and several versions of a 12 string guitar that he called The Bellzouki.
Bell also designed The Coral Hornet, which had a body shape similar to a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster. The bodies of Coral guitars were made in Japan then imported to the United States to be fitted with necks and electronics.
From the companies start, Mr. Daniel had recognized his product was not the same as Fender or Gibson and avoided dealing directly with retailers. So MCA’s plan to eliminate the jobbing business was a failure. By 1969, they shut the door on Danelectro.
A fellow named William Herring purchased the assets of Danelectro for $20,000. He turned to Ampeg as a way to unload some of his existing stock. Ironically, another Daniel, Dan Armstrong, was involved with Ampeg at the time, marketing his Lucite clear guitar, or at least making an attempt. Ampeg was having some production problems with the instrument. Armstrong states Ampeg purchased 650 to 700 single cutaway Danelectro Masonite guitars.
The story is somewhat fuzzy, but suggested these guitars were given to Armstrong in lieu of cash. Armstong then modified the guitars. He removed the existing lipstick tube pickup and replaced it with a humbucking pickup of his own design with a plastic surround. The electronics were changed as well and a clear pickguard was that bore the phrase, “Dan Armstrong / modified Danelectro.” A sticker was placed on the back of the guitars that announced Ampeg Co and the Danelectro logo on the headstock was painted over.
Unimusic, the company that now owned Ampeg, was in financial trouble and was unable to pay William Herring for the inventory he sold to them. Herring filed a lawsuit. It was later determined much of the existing MCA surplus was stored away in chicken coups and destroyed by the elements.
Meanwhile in Nashville, Tennessee guitar builder named Jerry Jones saw a market for Danelectro style instruments in Nashville and received permission from Nathan Daniels to build copies of Daniels guitar designs without the stacked potentiometers. Country Music recording companies recognized the unique sound of Danelectro guitars, and especially the six string bass that had been used on thousands of Los Angeles based recordings.
Jerry Jones Dano-style guitars became extremely popular, especially with local studio players, that added them to their collection.
Then a fellow named Anthony Marc acquired the Danelectro trade name, logo and patent to the stacked potentiometers and a lot of the unassembled Danelectro and Coral parts. For a time, Mr. Mark had an advertisement in Vintage Guitar Magazine and was selling bodies and necks for around $100.
Subway Guitars of Berkley California purchased much a Mark’s stock and assembled guitars for sale at their music store. Many of these creations were modified.
In the 1990’s, Steve Ridinger purchased the rights to the Danelectro name and logo. He set up the Evets Corporation and set about building replicas of the Danelectro line up. These instruments now being made in Asia.
These newer versions of old designs updated the bridge and saddle to a modern style adjustable unit..
Jerry Jones was still building Danelectro style guitars, with his name on the headstock. Evets filed a lawsuit against Jones. The suit was dismissed, since Evets did not have any rights from the Daniels Estate, this allowed Jones continued to build Danelectro style guitars up until his recent retirement, although they were slightly modified from his original design.
The Evets Corporation began by offering quite a line-up, including some models, such as the Ho-Dad, that was in no way similar to a Danelectro, except for the lipstick tube pickups. This came with two double pickups, in humbucker fashion, three pickups, or as a bass or baritone guitar.
For a long time the company’s present strategy was to build only one style of guitar and bass per year and offer it for sale, although lately it appears they are offering all of their products.
The Evets Corporation has adhered to Mr. Daniels philosophy, that they are not Fender or Gibson, but filling a niche market for inexpensive, but quality guitars.
Evets offers a variety of guitar related products, including practice amplifiers, their unique brand of tone-shaping pedals and an inexpensive, adjustable-voltage power transformer.
The original Silvertone and Danelectro guitars and basses remain available .Like vintage cars, they are available, but sometimes need attention. And they are expensive.
The Everts corporation acquired the brand name and was building guitars, effects, and amps in China, but the quality wasn't there. They are presently manufactured in Korea..
Nathan Daniel deserves credit, not just for his wonderful guitars and amplifiers, but for the innovations that he introduced to the music industry. The following list of Mr. Daniels inventions is from a tribute by his son, Howard Daniel:
• the first six-string electric bass (1956)
• the first 12-string electric guitar (1961 – the “Bellzouki,” developed in collaboration with Vinnie Bell and inspired by Greek bouzouki music from the film classic “Never on Sunday”)
• a 31-fret “Guitarlin” (1958) with a deeply cut-away “longhorn” body that enabled a guitarist to play an extra 10 frets into the mandolin range
• an amplifier and speaker built into a guitar carrying case (this was done for Sears, which sold the Silvertone “amp-in-case” and guitar for under $50 as a set for novice players)
• a “convertible” guitar that could be bought, inexpensively, for beginning students, as an acoustic, and later, with the purchase of a pickup kit, turned into a semi-hollow-body electric
• total shielding of guitar and amplifier circuits to protect against hum from neon signs, motors or other sources of electrical interference (he introduced this at a National Association of Music Merchants – NAMM – show, with Vinnie Bell demonstrating Danelectro guitars and amps while sitting right next to a glowing neon sign; the Danelectro products sounded crystal clear, while a specially assembled “Brand X” guitar, lacking the shielding, hummed noisily every time Vinnie plugged it in)
• guitar necks that never warped because they were reinforced with twin steel I-beams
• the use of inexpensive, yet strong and stable composite materials in both amplifier cabinets (Homasote, particle board) and guitar bodies (Masonite, Formica)
• a guitar neck-tilt adjustment system “nearly identical [as Washburn and Soest wrote in Guitar World] to the one Fender used – except that Danelectro did it a decade earlier and didn’t bother to patent it.
• a “master-slave” amp system with 300-plus watts of distortion-free power (back in 1956)
• a "hexaphonic" guitar, with each string having its own separate pickup, amplifier and speaker (1958 - but never manufactured)
• a capacitance pickup for classical guitar with a tube pre-amplifier built into the body; etching the nylon strings and coating them with graphite made it possible to pick up the signal (1959 - but never manufactured )
• a hybrid vacuum tube/solid-state amplifier (1968)
• A vibrato/tremolo system that he dubbed the Vibravox and a reverb system.
• A loudspeaker cabinet with inclined baffles that were designed to boost bass response by lengthening the sound wave path from the back to the front of the speaker. He called this the Acoustic Case.
When you look at this list it is amazing how many of these inventions were far ahead of their time and picked up by other guitar and amplifier manufacturers through the years.
How do the modern line of Danelectro guitars compare to the vintage ones? The original Danelectros were made using a frame of blocks of pine and poplar glued and stapled together (on the ones I've seen poplar is used for the center block /neck pocket area and pine for the rest.
Although I've heard people refer to all-poplar builds)with Masonite top and back.
The modern ones have a routed out plywood frame and the top and back material looks more like medium density fiberboard (MDF).
The manufacturer's specs state they are made of spruce hardboard.
The original guitars/basses look really rough on the inside but they've held up remarkably well: the fact a 50-60 year old Dano is still a very playable, roadworthy instrument says a lot about how well they were designed.
The vintage necks are not adjustable but generally remain straight due to the I-beam rods. While the modern necks feature an adjustable truss rod. The fretboards were made of Brazilian Rosewood.
All other instrument feature an adjustable hard tail Strat-style bridge/saddle or a wrap-around-bridge with individual adjustable saddles. Modern Danelectro instrument pricing ranges from $460 USD to $900 USD for a six string/12 string double neck. Average price is $570 USD.
Due to the higher output of current Danelectro pickups, the modern ones seem a bit chunkier with a Tele-like snap to the bridge pickup and have a higher output. The original pickups are lower output and generally sound very full and sweet in the neck position compared to a reissue.
As stated, the original Danelectro pickups were made from lipstick tubes, On modern Danelectro guitars and basses, and modern replacements they are specifically designed for the pickups.
These custom-made covers allow them to be manufactured in many different sizes and fit the most popular pickup routes like Strat pickups.
Inside the pickup, the improvements continue. The copper wire coil is now wound around a custom-sized plastic bobbin that features an Alnico bar magnet right down the center while the vintage ones were wound around just a bar magnet.
The modern pickups are made to deliver the same tone but are much more reliable and easier to manufacture. Modern lipstick single-coil pickups offer a variety of wiring improvements. On a vintage Danelectro, the neck pickup was built Reverse Wound / Reverse Polarity from the bridge model for hum-canceling operation when using both pickups. Also, the bridge model had slightly increased output to better balance with the neck position pickup.
My friend Doug with Sears bass
All of these modern updates have done nothing to quell demand for lipstick pickups, new and old. In fact, modern guitarists still use Danelectros quite often. However the 1964 Danelectro bass, model 1444, my best friend bought through the Sears catalog for $99 with the case.
