Paris Corp Guitar Amplifiers

Schematic attached to the inside of the PC-II amplifier
There are non-original changes pencilled in

About

Paris Corporation is one of the more obscure American brands of musical instrument gear from the 1960s. Little is known about them except that they built solid state amplifiers and occasionally tube amps for guitar and bass. They were based out of 521 Bishop Street in the town of Salina, Kansas which is north of Wichita.

They were formed in 1964 and continued to file annual reports with the state until 1992 and the business name was forfeited in '93 [3].

Campus in 1973 Historic Aerials

Campus in 2020 from Google Maps
Note the western building has been destroyed

The company also posthumously got into trouble due to their poor handling of toxic materials.  According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's assessment of the property, "Facility operations included assembly and manufacturing of electronic consumer products" [Basin Report pg. 79]. It appears the company dissolved quietly as KDHE reports again "From 2002 to 2004, KDHE identified past property owners and operator; and also attempted to identify any potentially responsible parties, but none were identified. The corporate status of the Paris Corporation was listed as dissolved with no apparent successors" [KDHE].

Amplifiers

There are claims that Paris is a store brand of L.W. Hagelin from Minneapolis which is supported by the fact that the only available catalog scan for Paris amps is from that catalog on VintAxe.com. I suspect it is more likely that they were sold through various catalogs, as was typical for instruments of the era, and that catalog is merely the only surviving example. 

The above schematic has 4 names on it, 3 of which I was able to make out. They are Al Dillard, K Lindberg, and Fred M Berry. The final name is signed very ornately and the paper is damaged which makes it difficult to read. Albert Dillard is the only one out of the 3 that, so far, appears to still be living.

The amplifier is labelled with a date ending in "66" in a couple places and the last "issue" on the schematic is dated to "65" which leads me to believe this amplifier was built in 1966. The resistors and capacitors seem to be of good quality and the entire amp is wired point to point. The potentiometers are Mallory and their pot code is 235 which is confirmed by one of the pots having the word "Mallory" on it. The speaker is Oaktron with a speaker code of 918. The amp has two germanium transistors for the power section.

Sources:

[Basin Report] - http://www.kdheks.gov/ars/swp/download/OSP_Basin_Report_2015.pdf

[KDHE] - http://kensas.kdhe.state.ks.us/certop/IopX?id=C508571972

[3] - https://www.kansas.gov/bess/flow/main?execution=e1s2