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]
