1970 – The Orange Log Book

A new idea to improve after-sales service

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

The Orange log book was essentially a guarantee card and a service record which showed the age of the amplifier, its history and maintenance record. In those days, by law, every car had to have a log book which showed details of the car maker, number-plate, engine size, year of manufacture and change of owner.

I thought it would be a good idea to have a log book for our amplifiers. When an amplifier was purchased from a shop, the buyer would receive his log book and send it back to our head office to register the guarantee and have it stamped [shown opposite]. We in turn would notify our sales reps that an amplifier had been sold in that particular shop. Should a problem have occurred with the amp or it had needed a service, change of valves etc, the customer would take his amplifier along with his log book to an Orange service centre. The work done would be registered in the log book, duly stamped, signed and dated.

If somebody was looking to buy a second-hand Orange, they could see the history of the amplifier and would know that genuine replacement parts had been used. This also made it more difficult to sell a stolen or modified amplifier. The log book was a big success in those days and gave us a lot of good publicity. Sometimes an amplifier would change hands several times and come back to us for stamping.