RICK: Hey, how can I help you?
MAN: I've got a 1947 Moscow guitar amplifier.
Belonged to Hank Williams Sr.
RICK: The Hank Williams Sr?
MAN: The Hank Williams Sr.
RICK: Because of him, country music is the way it is today.
Absolutely.
Father of country music.
And to me, it's just amazing.
I mean, it's Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
That's country music.
It's Hank Williams and then Johnny Cash.
COREY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
MAN: Yee-haw!
We got "Hank Williams, died January 1, 1953.
Gift of mother, Miss WW Stone."
She was Hank Williams' mom.
OK.
So give me the full timeline of how this thing
went from Hank Williams to you.
MAN: After Hank Williams died, his mom
gave those to a lady named Blanche Rawlins,
which was Hank's piano teacher.
Blanche Rawlins then gave it to Cindy, which is her niece.
And Cindy gave it to my uncle.
And my uncle gave it to me.
RICK: OK.
Do you have any other paperwork?
MAN: I don't.
I don't have anything else.
RICK: I would love to have it, I mean, if it's the real deal.
I really would.
I mean, it's--
Well, I'm wanting--
I'm wanting $450,000 for it.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
$450,000?
MAN: Yes.
OK.
Um, that's a lot of money.
MAN: That's a lot of history.
COREY: It is.
And you know what?
I-- [SIGHS] I'm not going to begin to guess what it's worth.
The problem is, is the story we have with it.
RICK: Because it doesn't even say
it was Hank Williams' amp on it.
MAN: Right.
- Let me call a friend of mine. - OK.
OK?
Have him take a look at it.
Maybe there's some way to prove it's his.
- OK. - You know?
And we'll go from there.
OK.
I'm very nervous right now, because I'd hate
for it to not be authentic.
I'm very interested in seeing what their guy has to say.
And hopefully it'll go in my favor.
JESSE AMOROSO: Wow, Hank Williams' amp.
Looks like he carried it around in his trunk or something
for a while, huh?
Wow, that is just insane.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
You know, if this is Hank's amp, this is--
I'm going to be able to plug a guitar into it,
turn it full blast, and see what it does.
That's pretty rad.
Well, it's a tube amp.
Probably mid '40s.
They're 15 watts.
Masco made a lot of PA stuff.
It's-- it's kind of strange to see a guitar amplifier that
would be associated with Hank Williams,
because he was really way more known for playing
acoustic guitar and singing.
Right.
But you know, I'm sure he owned a few amplifiers.
MAN: Right, right.
[LAUGHTER]
JESSE AMOROSO: We got to plug it in, make sure it works.
Because that's going to affect the value of the amplifier.
RICK: You just want to say you played
Hank Williams' amp, right?
JESSE AMOROSO: Yeah. Pretty much.
[LAUGHTER]
Pretty much.
All right, let's see here.
[BUZZES]
RICK: Tube's warming up.
It's making some noise.
[HUMMING]
[AMPLIFIED CHORDS]
[CRACKLES]
[VOLUME INCREASES]
It needs some work.
[LAUGHTER]
It needs some definite work.
It's immediately distorting.
You hear that-- that hum that it's making right now?
MAN: Yeah.
That's-- that means it needs capacitors really bad.
They-- they've probably dried out
and are leaking all over in there.
But it works, technically.
I wouldn't go through cleaning it up
or any of that kind of stuff.
The patina is kind of--
makes it awesome.
RICK: All right, so do you think it's Hank Williams'?
And if so, how much?
JESSE AMOROSO: Um, you know, other than the plaque,
is there any other proof?
Or--
Well, on the inside, inside this cover here, it's number--
it says number 133 of 254.
So I don't know if there is any way of tracking that down, who
bought it or what. But--
Yeah, I mean, the serial number really wouldn't--
Right.
Well, the company doesn't exist no more,
so I doubt if there's records.
JESSE AMOROSO: Yeah, yeah.
They probably got absorbed into another company at some point.
See, my thing with it would be, I could
go to the mall or a trophy shop and get something like this
made today and stick it in the yard for a week and then bolt
it on any old amp.
Because of what it is, it's not like, something
that was well known with Hank.
It's not like you see tons of pictures of him,
of Hank Williams' Masco amplifier,
and it's like, really well known.
Like, say, Jimi Hendrix's Marshall, or something.
You know what I mean? RICK: Yeah.
JESSE AMOROSO: There's no pictures of him
playing an electric guitar.
If it was Hank's it would probably be $25,000, 30,000
But without any kind of definite proof that it's his, you know,
the amp itself is probably worth $400 or $500.
RICK: I mean, you have to go get a hold of your uncle
and go through the whole chain of people of owning this thing,
try and look for old family photos, something.
OK.
Trust me, man.
I want this to be his amp.
I do too.
I want it to be his amp.
I want you to bring it back.
I want to buy it off you and I want to make tons of money
with you.
If I'm going to ask six figures for that,
I'm going to need to see a lot of proof, man.
A lot, a lot of proof.
And it's-- there's just--
there's none out there.
Right.
If I was making an offer on the way it sits right now,
it'd be 200 bucks.
OK.
I'm going to go ahead and keep it for that.
RICK: OK. Have a good one, man.
Thank you.
RICK: It sucks we couldn't prove this belonged to Hank Williams
Sr. But I'm going to hold out hope that he comes back
with some solid provenance.
I know it's a tall order.
But stranger things have happened.
This is Vegas.
[LAUGHS]