BOSS pedal oddities

[Pepe]

I forgot to share this picture of a BOSS BF-2 that I bought as defective last year, repaired on the 31st March '24 (broken zener diode). When I disassembled the unit I was really surprised!

BOSS used an enclosure that was originally intended for being used as a two-knob pedal. The serial number of this Flanger dates back to June 1981, so this is quite an early BF-2. Apparently there was an overstock of enclosures of the OD-1 or PH-1 that were already "replaced" by the SD-1 and PH-1R. My wife says that the spot around the switch is not really green as I thought the whole time (I'm quite colour-blind!). So maybe that is only the colour of the ground coat. A very sloppy paint job for a BOSS pedal, I must say!



Have you seen something similar?

[bigtone23]

That's cool, nice to see that the knob locations didn't clash. Love seeing transitional pieces.
I have an earlier BF2 (1982ish IIRC) and had a later Japanese one (1989ish). The paint jobs were clearly different, the earlier one looked to have brush strokes vs the much smoother, sprayed look of the later.

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

How very odd! Never seen such a thing before, cool find.

[visserman]

That is a great find Pepe, I guess we all now should dissemble our older pedals just to see what lies underneath, or just check near the switch.....

[Pepe]

I just stumbled over this strange looking Japanese BOSS HF-2. It has the early BF-2 knobs! I think it's highly unlikely that this is the original state. The HF-2 was introduced in 1985 and I'm pretty sure that also the BF-2 already had the knobs with light grey caps at that time. Before the introduction of the HF-2 there were the DD-2 and the HM-2 with their blue and orange caps ... It just cannot be original. Or can it?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/205771575801

s-l1600.jpg (430.78 KiB) Viewed 2797 times

[bigtone23]

That's cool, nice to see that the knob locations didn't clash. Love seeing transitional pieces.
I have an earlier BF2 (1982ish IIRC) and had a later Japanese one (1989ish). The paint jobs were clearly different, the earlier one looked to have brush strokes vs the much smoother, sprayed look of the later.

Here's my 2 BF2. I sold the Green Label one to my friend a few months ago.
The Black label is November 1980. The Green is 1989ish? I could barely make out the serial, and wrote what I thought it was with Sharpie.
In each picture, the older one is on the left. Both have the 'typical' BF2 knobs and are exactly how I got them, so I don't know how original or oddball they are.
?

[Pepe]

Well, you can buy replacement knobs of exactly this kind. I think that's because they were used for some synthesizers and not only for pedals. At least the Berlin-based Banzai Music shop has them in stock. Maybe some peaople kept the white knobs and replaced them with the old type to make their units seemingly more valuable.

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

Amongst the collection my BF-2 Green Label is a 1986 issue with those knobs, which I would guess to be standard timeline. Serial in the 600000s.

Never seen a HF-2 with those black knobs, certainly unusual.

According to the BOSS book codes (in this thread http://www.bossareaforum.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=463)


HF-2 OCT 1985 590000.