I bought this Small Clone pretty recently, my first, I’ve been wanting to get one forever. All I knew was that it was one of those odd ones with “Mini-Chorus” printed on the front instead of the normal/original/whatever (I’ve never heard exactly why these came to be) “Full-Chorus”.

Though I’ve been trying to learn everything I can, I’m definitely no expert in Electro-Harmonix pedals, or any pedals. But when I bought this, I assumed it would surely have a MN3007 in it. However, when I opened it up I was shocked to see a Reticon SAD1024A in there. I don’t think I’ve even heard of a “Mini-Chorus” version that also had a SAD1024A in it.

-The pot says P0200 1378339

-The date code? on the SAD1024A is 13244

The date code on the IC I just plain do not know how to go about reading. Looking around, I did see a couple others that had 5 digit ones instead of the 4 I would have expected, but no explanation on how to read them.

The one and only thing I came up with is: The numbers of the date code in reverse say December 11th 1979 in Julian calendar. That is like RIGHT around the time they started making these? Total shot in the dark, but it’s the only way I can envision anything that’s not way way too old to be possible at all, and it did come out sounding plausible.

Or could it just be that it was modded? Is this as rare of a sight as I’m thinking it is?

OH WAIT THERE’S JUST THIS ONE PROBLEM
The person who sold it to me said it had no issues with any aspect of it’s functionality. However, as of since I’ve had it, the chorus effect I’m getting from it is so faint/weak it’s just barely there at all. Even with it turned up all the way, with the depth switch in either position, it sounds exactly the same, like not much at all. To where I MIGHT even just be imagining it, because I do want it to be there oh so very badly. I emailed him and asked very nicely if he was absolutely sure it was functioning properly, emphasizing that either way I will still want to keep it (got a good deal and I’m already very attached) and I really just want to know to help with the process of elimination in getting it fixed. Like maybe if it just got knocked around a little too much during shipping or something, I dunno. And to that, he said that he was absolutely sure that it was working perfectly. I looked around inside and I couldn’t find a single thing that didn’t look solidly connected. I don’t have any testing equipment handy, but I should again sometime in the near-ish future.

Any ideas? Or does it sound like I kind of just got screwed? Er, I guess I already can say I don’t feel that way at all. Unless I have to find out that it’s the SAD1024 that’s bad. I think I’d kind of feel screwed then. I do think it sucks royally, this pedal has pretty much GOT TO BE pretty extremely rare, and as far as I know everything is original on it and it’s looking downright pristine.