Authenticated Grateful Dead MC2300 possibly used at Watkins Glen. Janet Furman was flown in a helicopter to the McIntosh factory to pick up additional amplifiers because of the size of the crowd that showed up. These amplifiers were pulled off of the assembly line without serial numbers and explains the lack of a serial number on this amplifier. Janet communicated to me that she likely installed the banana jacks on the back of this amplifier.

From Mike Wald from Waldotronics, expert on Grateful Dead electronics from all periods. You can contact him at for his validation of the provenance of the amp:

“Your amp is a confirmed GD amp. No other GD MC2300 has a serial not there, but there is possibly 4 others, so i will look for those. I already contacted wickersham in hopes of him having some serials for the WOS. Unlike McIntosh, they did keep info. They just need to look for it. if there is a list, it might me notated in those notes.”

“Yours is much cleaner not having been stored like the ones sold at the auction recently, they are all caked with deterioated foam all in them and on them.

Here is Janet Furman’s email to me about the amp:

“Hi Geoffrey,

You got the right address, but I don’t think I can be of much help. It’s been 48 years, and my memory for details is fading. The one thing that I recognize is the style of banana jacks. We used that low profile style rather than the kind that doubled as screw terminals because they were less likely to be accidentally broken off. There was always an assumption that the roadie crew was bound to handle things roughly, and anything that could be broken, would be broken.

Very likely I installed those banana jacks, but I don’t remember specifics like exactly where on the chassis they would’ve been placed. In those days, I installed banana jacks on an awful lot of different kinds of amps, rackmount power amps and guitar amps. I located them wherever I could find room.

I don’t have any specific recollection about the missing serial numbers. It’s quite possible that they hadn’t yet been applied, since I do recall that the amps were still on an assembly line and hadn’t yet been boxed. And I don’t know anything about the stickers. Those could’ve been added at any time, maybe years after Watkins Glen.

In conclusion, based on the presence and style of banana jacks, I would say the amp almost certainly once belonged to the GD. Whether it’s one of the ones I picked up at in Binghamton for the Watkins Glen show, I can’t say for certain.

Hope that helps a little.

Best regards,
Janet"

Buyer to pay packaging, shipping and insurance costs. This baby weighs about 125 pounds so packaging and shipping isn’t cheap. Available for local pickup in Washington and Oregon.

I would average out what was sold at auction, minus budman, and get your number from that calculation, give or take.“

The average selling price of the non-Budman Sotheby’s 2300’s was over $40,000.