What's wrong with this picture? (note: The original article quoted here had a photo of a K&F; lap steel standing in front of the subject amp.) There's certainly nothing unusual about the three-quarter K&F; lap steel‹it's a rather typical, crinkle finish student model. It's the amp that's odd. Most K&Fs; look like lunch boxes by comparison, but this one is a whopper. "This is it‹the Holy Grail of Fender amps," says co-owner Michael DeTemple. Why the excitement? Well, any K&F; amp is rare. Except for a few built during World War II, they were in production only from late 1945 through mid '46. DeTemple assumes this one is a '45, as its components date from that year. But even among K&Fs;, this one is an eye-popper because of its 15" speaker. (Others have 8s and 10s.) "I've never actually seen a 15, just pictures of them," says Richard Smith, author of Fender: The Sound Heard 'Round the World." This is the top of the line-‹if a custom amp could be considered part of the line. There's no known literature describing it, but Leo Fender made a few amps for professional customers, which accounts for its rarity." DeTemple sees a significance beyond the amp's scarcity: "It has the 15, but it's also Leo's first amp with the 6L6 power tube. It has two of them. It marks Leo's decision about which way he would go with the more powerful amps we all came to love. To me, this amp is the forerunner of the Fender Professional. It has the same dimensions, speaker size, and cabinet shape. Also, its chassis is mounted on the top instead of the bottom. It even has a tremolo circuit!" Aspen Pittman, author of The Tube Amp Book, observes: "Leo was reading RCA tube manuals like everyone else, and the 6L6 was the logical step for a more powerful amp. Forerunner of the Pro? Absolutely. It's an amazing find." John Sprung of American Guitar Center, Wilmington, Vermont, and co-author of "Fender Amps, The First Fifty Years", calls this K&F; "one of the best collector's items you could ever have--a real missing link...."