Boy, I tell you, I encountered a Tuxedo in the wild at Manny’s in New York in…1988? 1989? I was dumbstruck. Picture one of these brand new, so white it almost hurt your eyes, not a scratch on it. Just wow.

But that’s not the white bass we’re going to talk about today. In fact, we’re not talking about a BH/BT-era bass at all. So with that in mind, close your eyes and try again.

And remember: no black hardware.

Oh hell yeah! 1970s. Black plastics. 8-strings. Potato headstock. John Entwistle and Chris Squire. Excellent choice.

You’re getting warmer, but that’s not it.

Try again.

I mean, right? I know why you went there. That creamy color from the yellowed topcoat is what most of those 1970s and ’80s White basses look like today. It’s true.

But it’s still not what I’m looking for.

One more shot.

A 4004 (click to learn more) in Snowglo? That’s a deep cut, man. You know your stuff! Although it is technically Snowglo, not White. So, again, not what we’re looking for.

One last chance. Seriously. This is it. Dig deep.

You know, the 3000 and 3001 (click to learn more) did come in White! I had forgotten that! But it’s still not the answer I’m looking for.

I could give you more guesses—I can think of a couple Snowglo 4003 (click to learn more) runs and of course there’s the 4080, but that’s a bass and a guitar so it doesn’t really count—but I still doubt you’ll get it. I doubt you even know this exists. So I won’t tease you any longer. Behold:

I mean, if you stop and think about it, it absolutely makes sense that such a thing exists. You’ve probably just never seen one before.

When you think of basses from the 1970s and early ’80s—especially White basses—the 4005 probably doesn’t spring to mind. And to be fair, the 4005 (click to learn more) went dormant after 1974—when White basses started becoming a thing—and didn’t reappear until 1979. A bunch were made in 1979, and then a handful in 1981 and 1982, and then they disappeared for good.

But 1979 to 1982 landed right at the tail end of the Black Trim era, so in hindsight it’s not entirely surprising that a few BT 4005s made their way out of the factory.

You can read more about the Black Trim and Black Hardware/Black Trim eras here, but in a nutshell, from 1973—literally starting with the two custom-built 8-string 4001/8s (click to learn more) we talked about above—until about 1983, basses in White and Autumnglo came stock from the factory with black body binding and plastics. Mapleglo was also sometimes similarly equipped. Thus the “Black Trim era.”

Oddly, the neck binding on BT instruments stayed white. That wouldn’t change until the BH/BT era, starting in 1984.

Black trim made it to other models as well. I’ve seen it on 330s, 450s—and those full-face 450 pickguards look extra strange in black!—481s, and even a couple 360s from this era.

So of course there had to be a couple 4005s as well.

There are currently two on the Rickenbacker Register, and a potential third showed up on Facebook a couple weeks ago:

I say “potential” third because one of the entries on the Register has no photos, and we don’t know the serial number of this one. It could be the same bass, or it could be a third…we just don’t have enough information.

But both examples we have photos of share a trait seen on other White Rickenbackers, but not the 4001 (click to learn more). Let’s focus in here on the pickups a little bit:

Yes, the clearcoat over the White finish has yellowed to give the whole guitar a creamy color. That’s not what I’m talking about. Here’s a slightly better photo of what I’m talking about on a 1987 360/12 (click to learn more) Tuxedo pickup:

You see that orangey-brown discoloration of the finish around the pickup? Sometimes—not always—there is “some” sort of reaction between White finishes and the foam rubber mounting pads the Higain pickups sit on. I’ve seen—but can’t find right now, of course—pictures of White guitars with their pickups off and a clear brown imprint of where the pads sit. Go figure.

You don’t see that on White 4001s and 4003s because, well, they don’t use Higain mounting pads. The neck pickup is mounted under the pickguard, and the bridge pickup is attached to the pickup surround. So no pad, no discoloration.

It’s also kind of weird to see Higains on a 4005 at all. Or inset poured inlays. Because so few were made after the Transitional Era, your mental picture of a 4005 probably has toasters and crushed pearl inlays. But basses with modern features like these absolutely exist—even if they do look kind of odd.

And that’s really about all there is to say. It’s not a special model or some forgotten factory experiment. It’s just what happens when the very end of 4005 production overlaps with the Black Trim era.

Which means that, as weird as they look, there’s really nothing weird about them at all.

I still bet you never would have guessed it, though.

Just like any other fandom, Rickenbacker fans and collectors have developed a language all their own. If you’re new to the game, it won’t take long before you run into mysterious abbreviations, factory terminology, collector jargon, and nicknames that everyone else seems to understand.

So let’s translate.

Below you’ll find most of the terms and abbreviations you’re likely to encounter in the Rickenbacker world, along with a brief explanation of what the hell everybody is talking about. And where there’s more to the story—and there frequently is—I’ve included a link to the full article.

Let’s go.

1 o’clock/2 o’clock F-Hole

A shorthand used to describe the orientation of an f-hole, with a 1 o’clock f-hole being more vertical than a 2 o’clock f-hole. Imagine the f-hole as the hour hand of a clock: whichever number it points toward determines its designation. Click HERE to learn more about f-hole orientation.

6/12 Converter

Produced from 1966 to 1968, a lever on the face of the guitar slid a “comb” under the strings that engaged, pulled down, and muted the octave strings, allowing a 12-string to function as a 6-string. Of limited utility, it did not last long. Models equipped with the converter ended in -6, and the 450/12 (456/12), 330/12 (336/12), and 360/12 (366/12) were all offered in this form. Click HERE to learn more about the 6/12 “convertible guitars”.

12k Toasters

Reissue toaster pickups made from around 1982 to 1999 that were wound to around 12k ohms. 1960s vintage toasters—and modern scatterwounds—are closer to 7.5k ohms. Also referred to as “hot toasters”, they were reissued and officially referred to as such on the 480XC in 2021. The original 12k pickups can be easily identified by the Phillips head screws at their corners.

AC

The 4003AC, a Signature Limited Edition bass designed by and for Al Cisneros of Sleep. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

Accent Vibrato

A simple, surface-mounted vibrato fitted to many guitars from roughly 1960 to 1969. It functions similarly to the Gibson Maestro Vibrola because both were licensed from the inventor, Paul D. Butts. Factory-fitted vibrato model numbers ended in -5, so a 330 equipped with an Accent vibrato was designated a 335. The Accent has also appeared on a number of vintage reissue models. Click HERE to learn more about the Accent Vibrato.

AFG

Factory paint code for Amber Fireglo, the 2006 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

AG or ATG:

Factory paint codes for Autumnglo, a standard factory finish that has been offered off and on throughout the years—and has varied considerably in appearance. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

Aluminum Foil Truss Rod Cover

Collector’s name for the thin, grey-washed stamped-metal truss rod cover used on student and entry-level models from 1957 to 1961. They dent fairly easily, thus the aluminum foil nickname. Click HERE to learn more about truss rod covers.

Amber/Ambering

Prior to the switch to UV-curing in 2009, Rickenbacker’s clear topcoat was susceptible to yellowing over time from UV exposure. Collectors refer to this process as ambering. The effect can be pleasing, leading to Rickenbacker creating artificially ambered finishes like Amber Fireglo by adding yellow colorant to the topcoat.

Astro

An inexpensive kit guitar manufactured in 1963 and 1964 for Christmas sales. It did not share any parts, cosmetics, or design elements with contemporary Rickenbacker models. Click HERE to learn more about the Astro kit guitar.

AZ or AZG:

Factory paint codes for Azureglo, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

Backpainted Plexi Truss Rod Cover

From 1957 to 1974 most Rickenbacker models featured a clear Plexiglas truss rod cover where the logo was silk-screened on the back side and then covered in paint. They were replaced in 1975 with an injection-molded, raised-letter version. They reappeared in the early 1980s on vintage reissue models. Click HERE to learn more about truss rod covers.

BB

Factory paint code for Blue Boy, the 2004 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

BBR

Factory paint code for Blueburst, the 2005 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

Ben Hall

Rickenbacker factory and operations manager and son of owner and longtime CEO John Hall. Increasingly responsible for day-to-day operations.

BG

Factory paint code for Burgundy/Burgundyglo, both a standard factory finish and the 2002 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors or HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

BH/BT

Black Hardware/Black Trim, referring to instruments produced from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s outfittted with black hardware (metal parts) and black trim (plastic parts). There were also BT-only instruments produced from the mid 1970s to early 1980s. Click HERE to learn more about the BH/BT guitars.

Black Diamond

One of the two names—along with Jet Black—used for black finishes prior to the introduction of the Jetglo name in 1965. Jet Black was used from 1957-1959 and 1965-1966, Black Diamond from 1960-1964. Click HERE to learn more about factory finishes.

Blackstar

A limited-production black-painted 4003S bass featuring a black-painted fingerboard and black hardware/black trim. 200 were produced between 1988 and 1990. Click HERE to learn more about the Blackstar.

B-Series

Circa 1982-84 guitars “inspired” by Beatles-associated models. Rickenbacker’s first “reissue” models, but not historically accurate reproductions. Click HERE to learn more about the B-Series guitars.

Blend Knob

The small fifth knob found on many Rickenbacker models that adjusts the neck pickup’s output relative to the bridge pickup, allowing it to function as a pickup volume equalizer or to alter the balance between the two pickups. Click HERE to learn more about the blend knob.

Boyd Vibrato

Collector term often mistakenly used to identify the Japan-sourced vibrato unit found on 1965 to 1967 425s. While there is such a thing as a Boyd Vibrato, it was never offered on Rickenbacker guitars. Click HERE to learn more about the real Boyd Vibrato.

Bridgeplate

To secure the strings at their ball ends, early solidbody Rickenbackers used a flat plate with a bent lip and retaining holes attached to the face of the guitar. The bridge then sat upon this plate. Plate + bridge = bridgeplate. The serial number for most bridgeplate-equipped guitars is stamped into the plate.

Byrd Wiring

An optional factory wiring package offered from 1966 to about 1972 that reproduced the custom wiring found on Roger McGuinn’s 1966 370/12. Click HERE to learn more about Byrd Wiring.

Capri

The original form of the modern Rickenbacker semi-hollowbody, produced from 1958 to 1961. The body was redesigned in mid-1961, creating the “New Capri” shape that lives on in today’s 330. Correct model nomenclature for Capri-era guitars is “330 Capri,” “365 Capri,” etc.

Cat’s-Eye/Slash Soundhole

Interchangeable collector terms for the distinctive long, tapered soundhole found on most semi-hollowbody Rickenbacker guitars.

CB/Checkered Binding

Two-ply binding found on some vintage-era guitars, consisting of an outer white ply and an inner ply of alternating black-and-white squares. Also found on some modern vintage reissue, limited edition, and special-run guitars.

Chickenbacker

Chinese-made counterfeit Rickenbacker instruments, usually of fairly poor quality and generally easy to spot. Not to be mistaken with the Japanese-made “lawsuit era” copies of the 1970s and 1980s.

Clownglo

Collector’s term for Fireglo finishes with an abrupt transition between the dark border and light center. The term was borrowed from the “Clownburst” nickname given to 1970s Gibson Les Pauls in Cherry Sunburst with a similar effect.

COA

Certificate of Authenticity, often issued by the factory with Signature Limited Edition models or special runs, bearing the serial number and the item number within the limited run.

COY

Color of the Year. Each year from 2000 to 2006 Rickenbacker offered a limited edition finish that could be ordered on almost any model, but only during that specific year. Many were actually produced in subsequent years due to factory backlogs and batch scheduling. In order they were: Sea Green (2000), Desert Gold (2001), Burgundy (2002), Montezuma Brown (2003), Blue Boy (2004), Blueburst (2005), Amber Fireglo (2006). Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

Combo

Factory designation for early solidbody (or weight-relieved) guitars. Correct model nomenclature is “Combo 600,” “Combo 400,” etc.

CNC

Computer Numerical Control, the use of computer-controlled machine tools to cut and shape parts. Rickenbacker began producing the wooden parts of its guitars and basses with CNC machines in 1996.

Cresting Wave

The body shape used on 400 and 600 Series guitars, with an upper cutaway shaped like a wave that is cresting and about to break. Introduced circa 1958, the same basic design language was also used for the 4000 Series basses. Click on HERE to learn more about the cresting wave.

Crushed Pearl Inlays/CPI

From 1964 to 1973 the triangular fretboard inlays found on deluxe models were made from sheets of crushed mother-of-pearl. Some modern limited-edition and special-run models have also used a contemporary version of this material. Click HERE to learn more about crushed pearl inlays.

C-Series

The third iteration of vintage reissue models, with production beginning around 2005. The C-Series represented Rickenbacker’s most historically accurate reproductions of the original Beatles-associated instruments to date. John Hall famously refuses to explain what the “C” stands for. Click HERE to learn more about the C-Series guitars.

CS

The 4001CS Signature Limited Edition bass, based on Chris Squire’s modified 1964 Rose Morris 1999. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

CV

Conversion varnish, a two-part catalyzed polyurethane clearcoat used on most Rickenbackers since the early 1960s. A UV-cured formulation has been used since about 2009. Click HERE to learn more about conversion varnish.

CW

The 360CW and 360/12CW Signature Limited Edition guitars, based on a 1965 360/12 played by the Beach Boys’ Carl Wilson. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

DCM

Factory paint code for Dark Cherry Metallic, a finish offered exclusively on the 75th Anniversary models. A non-insignificant number have developed finish problems over time, most commonly excessive checking or a soft, “gummy” finish. Click HERE to learn more about the 75th Anniversary models.

Deluxe

Deluxe models include features such as triangle inlays, body and/or soundhole binding, and stereo wiring. Standard models usually have dot inlays, no binding, and mono wiring. Click HERE to learn more about the differences between standard and deluxe models.

DG

Factory paint code for Desert Gold, the 2001 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

Dick Burke

Richard “Dick” Burke worked for Rickenbacker from 1958-2004, serving as the wood shop manager for most of that period. He was responsible for the design of the 12-string headstock, “New Style” 360, and the R tailpiece, among many other innovations.

Electro

The earliest Rickenbacker lap steel guitars were branded Rickenbacher Electro, and the two names were used almost interchangeably until F.C. Hall bought the company in 1953. After that point, Electro as a brand was used exclusively for student and private-label instruments. The Electro String Instrument Company was also the official name of Rickenbacker’s manufacturing wing from 1933 until the 1990s when it was rolled into Rickenbacker International Corporation.

Exploding Tailpiece

Over time, string tension can weaken the R tailpiece, causing it to crack and break—usually at the crossbar where it fits into the bracket. Most common on 12 string and black powder coated tailpieces. Not as common as you probably think, but more common than it should be. Click HERE to learn more about the R tailpiece.

Exploding Wavy Grovers

Grover Slimline tuners used on basses between 1969 and 1974, and then again from 1982 to 1985. Around 1972, the keys went from flat-stamped to crimped into an “S” shape—thus the “wavy.” The closed-back tuners had casebacks that were press-fit into place, and the mounting lugs could fail over time—especially if they were struck. When that happened, the backs would pop off, leaving nothing holding the gearing in place—thus the “exploding.” Click HERE to learn more about Wavy Grovers.

F-Body Guitars

“Full body” hollowbodied guitars with a more traditional “jazz guitar” single cutaway shape and 17-inch-wide body. Two very different versions were produced, the first between 1958-1961 and the second between 1967-1968. Proper model nomenclature is 360F, 335F, etc. Click HERE to learn more about the first generation F-Body guitars.

F.C. Hall

Francis Cary Hall. Purchased Rickenbacker in 1953 and led its transformation from a small steel guitar manufacturer into the modern Rickenbacker company.

FG

Factory paint code for Fireglo, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

FL

Fretless.

Gap-Tooth Bridge

Prior to mid-1973, the 4001 bridge was made of cast aluminum and featured a gap in the bar between the A and D strings as part of the casting process. Later bridges for the 4001 and 4003 were made of zinc alloy and had no gap.

German Carve

A design feature consisting of a pronounced, concave, stepped edge—the technical term is the “recurve area”—around the perimeter of the body. Most notably seen on the 381V69. Click HERE to learn more about the German carve.

GC

Guitar Center, once a major Rickenbacker dealer that ordered a number of limited edition instruments.

GF

The 230GF and 2030GF Signature Limited Edition models, designed by and for Glenn Frey of the Eagles. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

GH

The 360/12GH, a Guitar Center special run inspired by a 1965 360/12 owned by George Harrison. Similar to the CW, but without the heavily figured wood or checkered binding. Not a Signature Limited Edition model. Click HERE to learn more about special run models.

Glueglo

A mysterious discoloration that developed in the wood near the binding on some guitars produced in 1971 and 1972. Especially noticeable on Mapleglo guitars. Click HERE to learn more about Glueglo.

Gold Plastics

From 1957 to late 1963, many models featured truss rod covers and pickguards made of clear Plexiglas that was backpainted gold. Collectively, these are referred to as gold plastics. They are also found on some modern vintage-inspired and vintage reissue models. Click HERE to learn more about gold plastics.

Gumby Headstock

Collector term for the wide, slightly rounded headstock used on 6-string 360s from 1972 to 1984. Click HERE to learn more about the Gumby Headstock.

Hairpin Truss Rods

Truss rods used from the late 1950s until around 1985, hairpin truss rods consist of a single rod bent in half—like a hairpin—that is adjusted quite differently than a normal truss rod. Attempting to adjust one “normally” can lead to severe damage to the neck or fingerboard, giving them a bad reputation among those who do not understand their operation. Click HERE to learn more about hairpin truss rods.

Half-Tulip

The Combo 450 and 1000 both launched with odd, convex cutaways that made the guitars’ silhouettes look like a…tulip. In late 1957 the treble-side cutaway was reshaped to improve access to the upper frets, earning the resulting body shape the “half-tulip” nickname.

HB1

A humbucking pickup introduced in the late 1980s, most notably used on the 650, 4004, and John Kay and Susanna Hoffs Signature Limited Edition models. Click HERE to learn more about the HB1.

Higains

Single-coil pickups that first appeared on the 381 in 1969 and gradually replaced toasters on all guitars from 1971 to 1974. Wound hotter than the toasters they replaced—thus the name—their specifications have changed subtly over the years. They are recognizable by their black tops and “button” pole-piece covers, except for transitional Higains, which have exposed threaded pole pieces. Newer versions have pole pieces with hexagonal holes for height adjustment with an Allen wrench. Click HERE to learn more about Higain pickups.

Horseshoe Pickup

The first electric guitar pickup, used on Rickenbacker guitars from the 1930s until the late 1950s; basses until the late 1960s; and steel guitars until the early 1970s. Rather than using a magnetic base or pole pieces, the coil is surrounded by two horseshoe-shaped magnets, with the strings actually passing between the magnets and the coil. The pickup cover on modern Rickenbacker basses imitates the look of the horseshoe pickup. The “horseshoe magnets” found on vintage reissue basses are cosmetic only. Click HERE to learn more about the horseshoe pickup.

Jet Black

One of the two names—along with Black Diamond—used for black finishes prior to the introduction of the Jetglo name in 1967. Jet Black was used from 1957-1959 and 1965-1966, and Black Diamond from 1960-1964. Click HERE to learn more about factory finishes.

JG

Factory paint code for Jetglo, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

JK

The 381JK Signature Limited Edition model, designed by and for Steppenwolf’s John Kay and inspired by his 1968 381. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

JL

Signature Limited Edition models inspired by John Lennon’s 1964 325. Models included the 325JL, 355JL, 355/12JL. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

John Hall

Rickenbacker owner and longtime Chairman and CEO. He purchased the company from his father, F.C. Hall, in 1984 and now lives primarily in the UK, having largely turned day-to-day operations over to his son, Ben Hall.

JPS

Factory paint code for Jetglo Pearlstars, a finish that has appeared on multiple special runs. Click HERE to learn more about special colors.

Kauffman Vibrola

The first commercially available guitar vibrato, offered on Rickenbacker guitars from the 1930s to the late 1950s. Moving the handle moves the spring-loaded unit side to side to provide a note bending effect. Click HERE to learn more about the Kauffman Vibrola.

KK Knobs

Black plastic control knobs originally produced by Kurz-Kasch with seven prominent coved ribs, a flared skirt, and a slightly domed top with a white indicator line. Used on many vintage guitars, most reissues, and on all production since 2021.

Lawsuit Era Guitars

Japanese-made Rickenbacker—and Gibson, Fender, etc.—copies from the 1970s and 1980s. Often quite high quality, and not counterfeits—i.e., they were not branded “Rickenbacker.” Click HERE to learn more about Rickenbacker and the lawsuit era.

Lennonize

To modify a 325 to match a specific period in the history of John Lennon’s frequently modified 1958 325. Mods may include additions of a Bigsby vibrato, Sorkin compensated bridge and various control knobs. Click HERE to learn more about Lennonizing.

Lightshow

Produced circa 1970–71, the 331 and 4005LS replaced the normal top of a 330 or 4005 with a translucent one, filled the guts with Christmas tree light bulbs—with different colors responding to different frequencies—and powered the whole contraption with an external transformer. Click HERE to learn more about the Lightshow guitars.

LK

The 4004LK Signature Limited Edition bass guitar designed by and for Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

MB

Factory paint code for Montezuma Brown, the 2003 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

MG

Factory paint code for Mapleglo, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

MID

Factory paint code for Midnight Blue, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

Moonglo

Collector’s term for a very dark red sunburst produced in very limited numbers in late 1968. The factory designation was Autumnglo. Click HERE to learn more about the Moonglo guitars.

Natural

The factory name used from 1957 to 1966 for uncolored, natural wood finishes. Replaced by the Mapleglo name in 1967. Click HERE to learn more about factory finishes.

Neck-Through

In neck-through construction, the neck and central core of the body are formed from one continuous piece (or glued laminates) of wood to which body “wings” are attached. Many solidbody Rickenbacker models—like the 4003 or 620—feature neck-through construction. Click HERE to learn more about neck-through construction.

Neck Weight

A lead weight inlaid into the back of the fingerboard on 1970s basses. The purported purpose was to eliminate “dead spots” on the neck.

New Capri

The Capri line was redesigned in mid-1961, and the revised body shape—which lives on in today’s 330—is referred to by collectors as the “New Capri”. The late 1964 transition from gold to white plastics is largely considered to be the end of the New Capri era. Click HERE to learn more about the New Capri.

New Style

In 1964, the 360-style guitar was redesigned from the older, flat, double-bound body to a more ergonomic design with rounded-over horns and top, and a bound soundhole and back. Collectors refer to the redesigned body as the “New Style.”

Noir

Special-run guitars with a Matte Black finish, black hardware, black trim, ebony fingerboards, and checkered binding. Click HERE to learn more about the Noir guitars.

Oven Knobs

Large brown knobs with gold diamond-shaped tops made by Rogan, used on many 1950s and early-1960s models. Also called “stove”, “cooker”, and “TV” knobs.

OS

“Old Style.” 360-style guitars made after 1963 and before 1971 with a flat, bound top, as opposed to the rounded “New Style” top introduced in 1964. Collectors also refer to flat-top guitars built prior to 1964 as Old Style. After 1971, similarly constructed guitars are generally referred to as WB (“with binding”). Click HERE to learn more about OS and WB guitars.

Overrun

When instruments with special features were produced in limited quantities, the factory sometimes built a few extra bodies to allow for manufacturing yield, warranty claims, and other contingencies. If those bodies weren’t needed for their intended purpose, they were sometimes quietly completed and sold without all the identifying features of the original run—such as the signature pickguard on Signature Limited Edition models.

Paddle Headstock

The collector term for the large headstock design used on non-reissue 6-string guitars from 1984 to 2007. Introduced as the company transitioned away from Kluson tuners. Looks like a boat paddle, thus the name. Click HERE to learn more about the paddle headstock.

PMC

Factory designation for the “Paul McCartney” option on the 4001V63. When McCartney’s 4001S was built in 1964, Rickenbacker had not yet developed a left-handed headstock, so the one on his guitar appears “upside down.” The PMC option put either a left-handed headstock on a right-handed instrument or a right-handed headstock on a left-handed instrument to recreate that upside-down look. The later 4001C64 made the “right wrong” headstock standard.

Poured Inlays

From 1957–63 and again from 1973–2007, triangle fingerboard inlays on deluxe guitars were made from a mixture of pearlescent powder and resin, poured as a liquid and cured in place. The 1957–63 and early-1973 versions extended the full width of the fretboard; these were replaced by inset triangles for the remainder of the run. Click HERE to learn more about triangle inlays.

PT

The 1998PT Signature Limited Edition model, inspired by the Rose Morris 1998s played—and smashed!—by Pete Townshend. The first Signature Limited Edition model. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

Purpleburst

Collector term for Blueburst guitars that have faded due to extreme UV exposure, turning the finish from blue to purple. This type of fading is uncommon in most Rickenbacker finishes, making Purpleburst a notable exception. Click HERE to learn more about Purpleburst guitars.

R Tailpiece

The decorative yet functional tailpiece found on most semi-hollowbody instruments—and some solidbodies—since its introduction in late 1964. The R tailpiece was designed by Dick Burke and was inspired by a secondary Washington Redskins logo. Click HERE to learn more about the R tailpiece.

Raised Letter Truss Rod Cover

In 1975 the backpainted Plexiglas truss rod cover was replaced with an injection-molded version with raised lettering. The covers could be molded with white or black resins, with the letters finished in contrasting paint. These remain in use on all stock non-vintage reissue models. Click HERE to learn more about truss rod covers.

RBY

Factory paint code for Ruby, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

Redburst

Collector term for guitars with a red-to-black burst pattern, produced for Rose Morris in early 1966. The official factory paint code for these guitars was Autumnglo but, c’mon. Click HERE to learn more about the Redburst guitars.

Redneck

A limited-production, red-painted 4003S bass featuring a red-painted fingerboard and black hardware/black trim.

Register

The RickResource.com Register, a user-maintained database documenting more than 53,000 Rickenbacker instruments with serial numbers, specifications, and—in many cases—photos. Click HERE to access the RickResource.com register.

RIC

Rickenbacker International Corporation, the holding company founded by John Hall in 1984 that later consolidated Rickenbacker’s previously separate manufacturing and distribution companies under a single corporate structure.

Rickenbacker Outlet/Boutique Guitars

Primarily unique, one-off instruments built and sold directly online through the Rickenbacker website. More recently, the Boutique has begun focusing on small runs of unique instruments.

Rickenbuckers

A nickname for HB1 humbucking pickups. Click HERE to learn more about the HB1.

Rickysounds Nut

A replacement 12-string nut produced by UK dealer Rickysounds that increases the space between string pairs by narrowing the space within each pair and moving the E strings closer to the edges of the fingerboard. Given Rickenbacker’s relatively narrow neck width, many players find these nuts make their guitars easier to play.

Rick-O-Sound/ROS

Stereo wiring found on many deluxe models. Requires a stereo cable plugged into the guitar’s ROS output jack and connected to an external splitter box, allowing the neck and bridge pickups to be sent through separate signal chains. Click HERE to learn more about Rick-O-Sound.

RM

The 370/12RM Signature Limited Edition model, inspired by Roger McGuinn’s modified 370/12. May also refer to Rose Morris, Rickenbacker’s UK distributor in the 1960s. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition guitars.

Roger Rossmeisl

Roger Rossmeisl was a German-born luthier who worked for Rickenbacker from 1954 to 1962. During that time, he designed many of the instruments still in production today—including the 330, 620, and 4003—as well as key elements of the Rickenbacker design language, including the slash soundhole, teardrop pickguard, and paddle-shaped headstock. Click HERE to learn more about Roger Rossmeisl.

Rose Morris

Rickenbacker’s UK distributor during the mid-1960s. Semi-hollowbody Rose Morris models featured f-holes instead of the usual slash soundholes. Rose Morris models and their closest U.S. equivalents were: 1995/615, 1996/325, 1997/335, 1998/345, and 1999/4001S. The 1993 had no direct U.S. equivalent, the closest being a 330/12 with a bound body. Also referred to as RM and RoMo.

RRF

The RickResource.com Forum, one of the oldest and largest repositories of Rickenbacker information and discussion on the internet. Click HERE to visit the RickResource Forum.

Sceusa Neck

A neck profile patented by Peter Sceusa and offered as an option on Rickenbacker guitars in the early 1960s. Much like the EndurNeck found on modern Strandberg guitars, the profile changes as you move up the neck, and its aim was to improve player comfort and string accessibility. Click HERE to learn more about the Sceusa neck.

SF

Slanted Frets. Offered as an option on the 360 from 1970 to 1971, and as standard on the 481 from 1974 to 1979. The frets—as well as the nut and bridge—slant slightly downward from the high E to low E string. Unlike fanned frets, the scale length remains the same for each string. Designed to make chording easier. Click HERE to learn more about slanted frets.

SG

Factory paint code for Sea Green, the 2000 Color of the Year. Click HERE to learn more about the Color of the Year program.

SH

The 350SH Signature Limited Edition guitar, designed by and for Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

Shadow

A 1986 special-run 4003 produced for Guitar Center and generally considered the first modern Rickenbacker special run. Finished in Jetglo with BH/BT, checkered body binding; and black dot position markers. Click HERE to learn more about the Shadow.

Short-Pole Toaster

The earliest toaster pickups’ magnetic polepieces did not extend beyond the bobbin’s base, and therefore came with a flat back. This meant these pickups could be surface mounted. Later versions of the toaster had longer polepieces that required corresponding routs in the body. Reproductions were made for the 325C58, but have never been available as replacement parts.

Signature Limited Edition

A limited edition model either inspired by an instrument closely associated with a particular artist or designed by and/or for that artist. Usually features the artist’s signature on the pickguard. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

Silver-Top Knobs

Black plastic control knobs with a flared skirt, seven prominent coved ribs, and a silver disc on top. The disc is labeled for the specific control—Bass Volume, Treble Tone, etc.—with a white indicator dot. Used on most guitars from the mid-1960s until mid-2020. The smaller blend knob is unlabeled.

Skunk Stripe

Shedua or walnut center strip found on three-piece bass necks from 1972 to 1985 and again from 2022 to present. Click HERE to learn more about the skunk stripe.

SPC

Special. A model with special features (custom color, binding, extra pickup, etc) sometimes produced for a specific dealer, but the SPC label doesn’t really tie directly any particular feature. It basically announces, “Here’s a weird thing we made on purpose.” Click HERE to learn more about the SPC designation.

Special Run

A run of at least two identical guitars—often for a specific dealer/distributor—with specifications that do not appear in the catalog/price list for the given year of production. Those specifications could include color, binding, pickups, number of frets, etc. Click HERE to learn more about special run instruments.

Slotted Headstock

By routing two vertical slots into the face of the headstock, a second set of tuners can be installed sideways, allowing 12-string Rickenbacker headstocks to be much shorter than most. Starting in 2005, these slots were routed all the way through the headstock on non-reissue models.

Standard

Standard model features usually include dot inlays, no binding, and mono wiring, unlike Deluxe models, which usually feature triangle inlays, body and/or soundhole binding, and stereo wiring. Click HERE to learn more about Standard and Deluxe features.

Stubby

Collector term for short, hand-cut truss rod covers used on early Rose Morris 1993s. Click HERE to learn more about the stubby.

Tail Lift

Over time, string tension can pull the tail of the bass bridge up and away from the body. Most common on 1970s to mid-1980s basses, although any bass with the post-1973 zinc-alloy bridge is susceptible. Click HERE to learn more about tail lift.

Tailpiece Ramp

The downward-sloped section of the body beneath the tailpiece on many semi-hollowbody models. The ramp allows the tailpiece to sit at the proper angle while increasing the strings’ break angle over the bridge.

Teardrop Pickguard

You know. It’s shaped like a teardrop. The first now-iconic teardrop pickguards appeared on the 1958 Capri models and have appeared on the vast majority of six- and twelve-string models since.

Toaster Pickups

Vintage-style single-coil pickups used from 1957 to 1974, and then later on vintage reissue models. They kinda…look like the top of a toaster. Toasters represent a rare case of collector lingo becoming the official factory designation.

Toaster “Dimples”

Prior to 1964, toaster pickups featured “dimples” in the corner of the slots—relics from the injection molding process. When the C-Series guitars were introduced, those dimples were reproduced in the name of authenticity.

TP

The 660/12TP Signature Limited Edition, loosely inspired by the 1963 620/12 featured on the cover of Damn The Torpedoes by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That guitar actually belongs to Heartbreaker Mike Campbell. Click HERE to learn more about the Signature Limited Edition models.

Transitional Era

The period from 1970 to 1974 when Rickenbacker models gradually transitioned from many of their 1960s-era features to the specifications that would define the 1970s. Because the changes were introduced gradually, instruments from this period can exhibit unusual combinations of old and new features. Click HERE to learn more about the transitional era.

Transitional Higains

When introduced on the 381 in 1969—called “381 Coils” at the time—the first Higain pickups looked and sounded very different than the Higains we’ve come to know. These “transitional” Higains—as dubbed by collectors—are easy to spot thanks to their threaded rod-stock polepieces. Transitional Higains were replaced with the more familiar button-top version in mid-1973.

Trapeze Tailpiece

Prior to the introduction of the R tailpiece in late 1964, most semi-hollowbody guitars used a flat metal tailpiece with a roughly trapezoidal string anchor and two narrow mounting arms. It has since been used on several vintage-inspired and vintage reissue models.

Tulip

Several early solidbody guitars featured distinctive cutaways that gave the body a tulip-shaped silhouette. Tulip models include the Combo 400/450, 900/950, and 1000. The cutaway shapes of the 450 and 1000 evolved over time, with one intermediate version now referred to by collectors as a “half-tulip.”

Tuxedo

Limited-production, white-painted 360 and 4003S models featuring white-painted fingerboards and black hardware/black trim. 100 4003s and 30 360s were produced. Often misused to describe any White BH/BT guitar, but only guitars with white-painted fingerboards are Tuxedos.

VB

Circa-1990s option code for a factory-installed Accent Vibrato. The term has since become collector shorthand for any modern guitar fitted with an Accent that would not normally be equipped with one.

VH

Vibrato, Hi-Tek. Factory code for 650 models equipped with the Hi-Tek vibrato.

Vintage

Collector term for models built before 1973, by which point most of the significant changes associated with the transitional era had begun to take hold. Click HERE to learn more about vintage guitars.

Vintage Reissue Models

Modern guitars designed to evoke or recreate vintage models. The B-Series (circa 1982) was followed by the V-Series (circa 1985), which was followed by the current C-Series (circa 2005). Each subsequent series has been more accurate than the one it replaced. Model numbers in the V- and C- series usually end in VXX or CXX, where XX (sometimes loosely!) represents the model year being replicated (i.e., the 360/12C63 is a cope of the 1963 360/12).

Vintage Specifications

1960s-era specifications that were gradually phased out during the 1970-1974 transitional era. Model-appropriate vintage specs may include 21-fret necks, toaster pickups, crushed pearl inlays, neck pickup location, checkerboard binding, thinner tops, and internal “x” bracing, among others. Click HERE to learn more about vintage specifications.

Vintage Tone Circuit

Until 1985, most two-pickup models had a .0047µF high-pass filter on the bridge pickup. This gave the bridge pickup a brighter sound, but lower output. This circuit was reintroduced on the 4003 in 2006, accessible via a push/pull pot and dubbed the “Vintage Tone Circuit.” Click HERE to learn more about the vintage tone circuit.

VP

Factory option code for factory-installed vintage pickups. The term has since become collector shorthand for any modern guitar fitted with toasters that would normally come with Higains.

V-Series

The second vintage reissue series, which began appearing around 1985. The V-Series guitars marked the first serious attempt to recreate vintage specifications.

WAL

Factory paint code for Walnut, a 1970s-era standard factory finish. This does not refer to oil-rubbed natural walnut finishes. Walnut and the 1970s version of Autumnglo are often mistaken for each other—the color is very similar, but Walnut was gloss and Autumnglo was satin. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

WB

With Binding (also known as WBBS, With Binding, Both Sides). Post 1971 non-reissue 360-type guitars with a flat 330-style top and bound edges. Pre 1971 guitars with these features are referred to as OS. The term can also refer to 4005 basses with a flat, bound top. Click HERE to learn more about WB and OS guitars.

WHT

Factory paint code for White, a standard factory finish. Click HERE to learn more about standard factory colors.

W-Series

330, 360, and 4003 models with bodies made of walnut instead of maple. Click HERE to learn more about the W-Series.

WT

White Trim. During the BH/BT era, finishes that came stock with black hardware/black trim could be custom-ordered with chrome hardware/white trim. The factory code for such instruments was WT. Click HERE to learn more about the BH/BT era.

X-Bracing

Until about 1985, semi-hollowbody guitars featured glued-in, X-shaped bracing for reinforcement. After that point, the bracing became carved into the underside of the top itself. Click HERE to learn more about X-bracing.

Over their career, Roxette would sell more than 75 million records worldwide, score 19 Top 40 singles in the UK, and land four Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles in the U.S., including The Look and It Must Have Been Love. Yeah, you know those songs. In the day, they were kind of a big deal.

And even before they hit it big, Gessle played Rickenbackers. Notably enough that he caught John Hall’s attention, who signed them both as endorsees and printed promotional posters featuring the pair with their guitars.

Now neither of them got Signature Limited Edition models like fellow ’80s star Susanna Hoffs, but that doesn’t mean Rickenbacker didn’t give them some special guitars. Like this one.

At first glance it might not look that special—you might think it’s just a Jetglo 350 Liverpool—but if you look a little closer you’ll see two things that absolutely don’t belong on a normal 350.

This custom 350, given to Gessle, has full-width poured triangle inlays and black neck binding. A standard 350 has dot inlays and no binding.

It kind of makes sense in context. This guitar was built around the same time—mid-1988—that the 350SH Susanna Hoffs Signature Limited Edition was in development. The 350SH would also have full-width triangle inlays and a bound neck—although hers featured white binding. So there was clearly some fiddling with the 350 going on at the time.

Of course, the 350SH also wound up with fancy pickup options and a double-bound body featuring checkered binding. But we know many of the Signature Limited Editions went through multiple iterations.

So that raises an interesting question: was this guitar built to Gessle’s specifications, or was it an iteration of the Hoffs design they simply gave away to a Rickenbacker endorsee? That I do not know. But I do know I’ve never seen another one like it.

Pushing the needle slightly towards it being a custom-built instrument, however, is the white, one-pickup 350 Marie Fredriksson often sported. But that’s a story for another day!

Marie Fredriksson passed away in 2019, but Gessle continues to perform—and still uses that 1988 350 extensively. Whether it was originally made for him or not, it clearly still speaks to him. And isn’t that what’s really important?

I mean, does that red-to-black burst scream Teisco or what? But you’d be wrong. It’s legit. That guitar left the factory on South Kilson Drive in Santa Ana with that finish. And what’s more, it’s technically Autumnglo.

Well, that’s what the production records say, anyway. And while yes, Autumnglo has varied a lot over the years—and I mean a lot a lot—really? Autumnglo? Well, maybe that’s what they called it in the factory, but that’s not what it’s called in collector-land. There it’s “Redburst.” Because, well, look at it.

That’s an important point. As far as Rickenbacker is concerned, there is no such thing as Redburst. That term does not exist in any catalogues or invoices or factory production records. But c’mon. What else should we call it?

In the pre-internet days, folks outside of the UK didn’t really know these existed. The Richard Smith book told us in 1987 that 100 “Autumnglo” guitars were built for Rose Morris in 1966, but that was all we knew.

And so when these guitars first started appearing on the proto-listservs and message boards in the early days of the internet, the initial response was that they must be weird refins. But over time enough surfaced that they could no longer be denied. Eventually, the community figured, “These must be the Autumnglo guitars Smith talked about, but damned if they’re actually Autumnglo!” And thus was born Redburst.

So why does it even exist? Blame the Brits—Rose Morris, to be exact. At their request, all Rose Morris models were produced only in Fireglo. And while some of them—the 1993, 1997, and 1998 in particular—flew off the walls as soon as they hit the showroom floor, some—like the 1995, 1996, and 1999—didn’t.

Maybe their conservatism had bitten them in the bum, Rose-Morris worried. Maybe they needed to offer some color other than Fireglo. As early as August 1964, Rose Morris was asking Rickenbacker if other colors were an option. Maybe black? Maybe a bright Fender-style cherry red? “We’ll paint ‘em any color you want,” F.C. Hall told them. “On your NEXT order. We gotta finish the orders you’ve already placed first.”

How they landed on that precise black-to-red burst I have no idea. Maybe it’s exactly what Roy Morris asked for. Maybe they combined the black and the red he had specifically called out. Maybe the details are in the archives somewhere. Maybe they’re not. We’ll likely never know the specifics.

But this is how backlogged the post-Ed Sullivan Show Rickenbacker factory was: those discussions about another color for Rose Morris started in mid-1964, and these guitars weren’t built until February 1966.

Twenty-five 1997s. Fifty 1998s. And twenty-five 1999s. All in “Autumnglo.” I have to assume that once they arrived in the UK a letter went back to Santa Ana that basically said, “Yeah, let’s not do that again. Fireglo is fine moving forward.” Those 100 guitars would be the only Rose Morris models to feature that…unique paint job.

The end? Basically, but with one footnote. While Redburst doesn’t officially exist, Red Burst does.

In 2007, as one of Ben Hall’s boredom busters that got sold through the Rickenbacker Outlet, a one-off 4003 in “Red Burst” was offered for sale. Was that name purely descriptive, or a tip of the hat to collector lingo? We’ll likely never know, but it does mean that you can’t say “There is no such thing as Rickenbacker Redburst” out loud without some pedant—like me—chomping at the bit to say, “Well, actually…” Consider yourself warned.

What Burke came up with was pretty ingenious—three “normal” tuners and three “sideways” tuners per side, with slots routed into the headstock so you could reach those sideways posts. There was just one problem with that: the truss rod cover didn’t fit.

That’s a bigger problem on a Rickenbacker than it would be on most other guitars. Not only does the truss rod cover carry the guitar’s branding, its shape itself is an important part of Rickenbacker’s brand identity. A cover that doesn’t fit is kind of a big deal.

How big of a problem was it though, really? How off the mark was it? Well, you be the judge. Here’s a stock truss rod cover laid on top of an early 12-string headstock:

I’m sorry for the watermark on this photo, but as it so happens I don’t have a very very early 12-string Rickenbacker laying around to take a better one. But yeah, you can still see that’s a problem. A “two-out-of-three-sideways-tuner-posts-on-the-treble-side-are-inaccessible” problem. A solution was required.

For the early prototypes and pre-production models, Burke—or someone Burke handed a truss rod cover and a hacksaw to—made them fit, “visual identity” be damned. The preferred method—as reproduced on the 360/12C63 copy of George Harrison’s 1963 360/12OS prototype—seems to have been to cut a small triangle from the base to change the angle, then whittle away the curves until it fit the space between the routs.

It fit, sure, but it completely lost its shape in the process. When the Rose Morris 1993 entered production in early 1964—the first production 12-string Rickenbacker model—they needed something better. Enter the “stubby.”

Well, there was something else that made the stubby possible that we can’t leave out. Here’s another one of the early preproduction models—Pete Townshend’s 1964 360/12S.

Now I know that picture isn’t great—and sadly that guitar met an untimely end so it doesn’t exist today to take better pics of—but look closely at the routs for the sideways tuners. They’re dead straight. And it’s very clear how the truss rod cover was modified to clear those routs.

As much as the 360/12C63 got right, one thing they got wrong was those routs. The routs on Harrison’s guitar were as straight as Townshend’s. See for yourself:

Now let’s look at the 360/12C63 again.

Notice how those routs flare outward slightly at the bottom? Burke made that subtle change for the 1993, and it gave a little more real estate for the truss rod cover. It still wasn’t enough to use the stock cover as is, but it gave Burke (or Burke’s man with the hacksaw) room to get a little more…creative.

“Oh. ‘Stubby.’ I get it.” Yeah you do.

Cut the base at an angle—that’s obvious when you look at the “MADE IN USA” imprint that is normally perpendicular to the nut. Cut the bottom straight, then pare down the top and turn its gentle downward curve into an abrupt downward curve. It’s closer to the original shape than the “stairstep” on Harrison’s guitar…but it still could use some improvement.

It was still done by hand, and each one was a little different, but all guitars produced during that first July 1964 production batch got variations on the same stubby theme.

When the next production batch of 12-strings rolled around in October—the first batch of the New Style 360/12—the shape got refined again.

The bottom still got straightened out, and the top still got reshaped slightly around the rout’s flare, but the overall shape was a lot closer to the target. The space available was still the space available. And that’s more or less how they still do it to this day.

That one batch of 1993s from July was the end of the stubby. Well, almost. There was one other guitar you’ve probably heard of that got one too. Kind of.

A custom 12-string short-scale 325 was built for John Lennon in February 1964—before Burke had flared the routs—and its truss rod cover certainly has a stubby look to it, although more shaping was required both top and bottom. It’s probably not unfair to call this one the “stubby prototype.”

And because all Beatles guitars eventually got a reissue—even a one-off—25 copies were built in 1986, and you’d better believe they got a stubby.

Oddly, the next run of reproductions—136 in 1999—didn’t bother with this detail. Cut 25 of those suckers by hand? Sure, I guess. 136? Yeah, I got better things to do.

So, why “stubby?” I mean, I think you already know the answer. Some collector coined the term, everyone else kinda said “yeah, that fits,” and here we are. That’s just how terms like this work. And now you know too.

The 4001 you can afford, though? That one has a skunk stripe.

Now this is not your Fender skunk stripe like the one you see above. But it was that walnut strip—filling the back-routed truss rod channel of the maple-necked Broadcaster—that gave birth to the term “skunk stripe.” The Rickenbacker skunk stripe, however, is a different animal with a different purpose. So let’s talk about it.

The 4001’s Achilles heel throughout most of its life was one of the things it is most loved for today—that thin neck. No matter what Rickenbacker did—and it tried several things over the years—in the constant battle between wood and string tension, string tension just kept doing its damnedest to turn the 4001’s neck into a banana. The skunk stripe—paired with a shorter headstock—was the first attempt at a solution.

From the jump, the 4000 (click to learn more) and 4001 basses featured neck-through construction (click to learn more)—a key component of their ringing sound. Mahogany at first, then later a solid piece of maple running the entire length of the guitar. Rickenbacker’s hairpin truss rods (click to learn more) allowed for a considerably thinner neck than guitars with a more traditional single-action truss rod, and they took full advantage of that opportunity. And as long as flatwound strings were the norm, that thin neck was just strong enough to stand up to that tension. Mostly.

Rotosound introduced the roundwound string in 1962, but it didn’t really take off until 1966 when John Entwistle worked with Rotosound’s James Howe to develop what would become the “66 Swing Bass” string set. It went on to become probably the most significant set of strings in bass guitar history, and roundwounds began a decade-long climb toward market dominance.

Roundwound strings’ brightness came with a cost: they often featured higher tensions than flatwounds. Chunkier necks with single-action truss rods might need their relief adjusted to compensate, but once you did they were fine. But the thin Rickenbacker neck had met its match.

The weakest point was the headstock—long, relatively thin, and without any backward pitch, so higher tension strings could pull it forward to the point where strings no longer rested in the nut. So in late 1969 Rickenbacker began experimenting with a shorter headstock (click to learn more). But probably not exactly the way you’re expecting.

You see, they made these “short headstock” guitars—about half an inch shorter—side-by-side with the older, longer headstock guitars. And rather than keeping two different lengths of neck blank on hand, they used the same blank for both. So where did the extra half-inch go? Well, these short-headstock guitars got an extra fret—21 instead of the 4001’s normal 20.

Now the smart people in the room are doing some math in their heads and are going to ask, “So did the scale length get a half inch longer?” That’s a good question, and no, it did not. The bridge—whose bottom was normally flush with the edge of the guitar’s body—was slid forward a half-inch to compensate, keeping the scale length at the “normal” Rickenbacker 33 1/2 inches.

Rickenbacker must have thought the shorter headstock was helping, because by early 1971 all 4001s had the shorter version. So did all 4001s then get 21 frets? Nope, only 20—the neck blank was shortened by half an inch.

That may have helped stop the headstock bending, but it didn’t solve the entire problem. So the next step was more extreme: change the neck construction itself. And that’s where the “skunk stripe” enters the chat.

It might seem counterintuitive, but a properly constructed multi-piece neck can be stronger and more stable than a one-piece neck—less prone to warping, twisting, or importantly, bowing. A single piece of wood has the grain all running in one direction, and may have hidden flaws or weak points. Adding more pieces can introduce different grain orientations, reinforce weak points, and add the inherent strength that comes from lamination.

And so around March 1972, Rickenbacker changed the 4001’s neck from a one-piece maple through-neck to a three-piece through-neck, with a 5/16 inch strip of shedua running between two maple pieces—a stripe whose color and thickness very closely matched the walnut strip found on the back of those early Fenders. So naturally: skunk stripe.

Shedua wasn’t some random choice for the center stripe, either. In terms of “hardness,” it’s slightly softer on the Janka hardness scale than the rock maple the rest of the neck is composed of, but in terms of stiffness—as measured by the modulus of elasticity—shedua kicks maple’s butt. Ditto for the modulus of rupture or “bending strength.”

And those are three different things: hardness tells you how resistant wood is to dents and wear, stiffness tells you how much it resists bending, and bending strength tells you how much force it can take before it breaks. For reinforcing a skinny bass neck, the latter two matter a hell of a lot more than the first.

So why is the shedua strip so narrow? Well, it’s not cheap—shedua runs two to three times the price per board foot of rock maple. So it made sense to use just enough to get the job done without breaking the bank in the process. It would appear that that amount was about a skunk stripe’s worth.

At the same time, the 4001’s headstock wings changed from walnut to maple—perhaps to offset the cost of the new shedua strip?

One more attempt to strengthen the 4001’s neck would come in mid-1974, when the neck pickup moved about half an inch closer to the bridge. Previously, its rout removed a substantial chunk of the through-neck right where the body wings began, creating another potential weak point. Moving the pickup—and its rout—inboard left more wood at that critical junction.

And with that, Rickenbacker declared “good enough, problem solved.” The skunk stripe would go on to be added to the 4000’s set neck, the 3001’s (click to learn more) bolt-on neck when it launched in 1975, and even the super-deluxe 4002 (click to learn more) upon its appearance in 1977. The only 1970s bass not to get a skunk stripe was the short-scale 3000. But was the problem really fixed?

Well…not really, no. New 4001s still left the factory with medium-tension Maxima flatwounds…but players kept swapping them for higher tension roundwounds, and necks kept bending. Not every one, not every time, but it was a big enough issue that by the late 1970s Rickenbacker was warning players that using strings other than the factory-issued Maximas would void their warranty. So not “good enough, problem solved.”

The 4003 (click to learn more), formally launched in 1980, would be the solution. And how did they solve it? They took the 4001 and gave it a big ol’ beefy two-piece maple neck. They also flipped the truss rods around backwards for reasons that never really made sense. But it was really all about that honkin’ big ol’ neck. Sometimes there’s just no replacement for more mass.

The 4001 and 4003 were sold side-by-side through 1985—the 4001 with flats and the 4003 with rounds—but sales steadily shifted towards the 4003, big ol’ neck or no. The 4001 and the skunk stripe both disappeared at the end of 1985. But the skunk stripe would be back.

Around the same time the 4001 and skunk stripe disappeared, the 4003 saw a major change in construction. The dual hairpin truss rods were replaced by dual “conventional” single-action rods. And given how those rods are sunk deeper into the neck than the hairpins were, that beefy neck was now doing double duty—providing the structural strength the roundwound strings demanded while also providing the real estate the truss rods required. And more and more players began pining for the 4001’s skinny neck.

The good news for players who wanted a skinny neck was that Rickenbacker had cranked out a lot of skunk-striped 4001s in the 1970s, so they were easy enough to find. The bad news for Rickenbacker was that they had already made all the money they would make on those basses years ago.

That would change in 2022. The 4003AC Al Cisneros Signature Limited Edition Model (click to learn more), introduced in 2019, had come equipped with a single, dual-action truss rod. The dual-action truss rod sits in a small channel directly below the fingerboard, just like the old hairpins used to. In 2022 the 4003AC’s truss rod made it to all 4003s—which suddenly no longer needed all that real estate the single-action rods had called for.

And without the need for those deep truss rod channels, the neck profile could be reshaped from a deeper “C” shape to a shallower “D” shape. Not quite as thin as the old 4001, but pretty darn close. And just to be sure it would hold up, the two-piece maple neck would be modified to three-piece…with a walnut skunk stripe.

Does walnut have all the same beneficial properties of shedua? No, it does not—although more laminations are still a good thing in terms of overall strength. But does that thin stripe of dark wood mean something to certain Rickenbacker bass fans? It sure as hell does: “Oh. This is one of the good necks.”

What began as a solution ended up a signifier. But I have to believe that in 20 years’ time, there will be threads on whatever the current version of message boards is saying, “If you want one of those classic beefy Rickenbacker necks look for ones without the skunk stripe…”

If you lived through the decade, you know what that is. Introduced in 1992 by the Sweetheart Cup Company, that hand-drawn teal-and-purple pattern—named “Jazz”—appeared on disposable paper cups in what seemed like every bathroom and backyard cookout in the United States for most of the decade.

But as ubiquitous as the “Jazz” pattern was, it didn’t exist in a vacuum. The 1990s were the decade of teal and purple—although it really started in the late 1980s. As a native North Carolinian, I got to see its birth firsthand.

In 1988, the NBA granted an expansion franchise to Charlotte—the Charlotte Hornets. And when the Hornets unveiled their Alexander Julian-designed uniforms, the primary colors were teal and purple. The madness was beginning.

Listen, man, there were twenty-two NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB teams that debuted or rebranded in the 1990s. Eleven of them—fifty percent!—utilized teal, purple, or both as primary colors. Teal and purple was no joke.

And it wasn’t just sports teams. Teal and purple—especially teal—spread to cars, clothes, consumer goods packaging, portable electronics, and even freakin’ Taco Bell interiors. I was there. I saw it all happen.

Here’s the point: Rickenbacker introduced exactly one new “factory color” in the 1990s—and no, I’m not counting the 650’s oil-rubbed walnut or vermillion bodies. We’re talking about paint here. Care to guess what that one color was?

Ok, it’s not technically teal—it’s Turquoise. But c’mon, man. Close enough.

Now as it appeared—and as it first appeared—on the 650A Atlantis in 1992, Turquoise was kind of doing double duty. Yes, it was very much the flavor of the week, but it was also harkening back to some of the earliest modern Rickenbackers.

Turquoise Blue, as the 1950s version was called, was the second finish—behind only Natural—offered on the first modern Rickenbacker Spanish guitars, the 1954 Combo 600 and 800 (click to learn more).

In addition, the unpainted neck-through section on the 650A was a callback to the third modern Rickenbacker guitar, the 1956 Combo 400 (click to learn more).

To be fair, the Combo 400 wasn’t available in Turquoise Blue—but its most common finish by far was Cloverfield Green, which once again, you know, close enough.

To make that callback as clear as possible, period literature referred to the 650A’s finish as “vintage” Turquoise. So, a guitar that evokes vintage models of the 1950s while at the same time taking advantage of the hottest color trend of the decade…can you honestly say you’d do any different?

To me, yes, it’s undeniably trendy. But they did a good job of providing just enough justification to keep it from feeling nakedly trendy.

I mean, trendy or not, it’s a pretty darn good-looking finish. A handful of custom-order/show guitars other than the 650A escaped from the factory in 1992 and 1993, but in 1994 Turquoise made the jump to a standard factory color (click to learn more) available on pretty much anything. And the crowd went mild.

But that’s not entirely fair. If, like me, you’re a child of the 1970s and ‘80s, have you ever wondered why every single new car on the dealership lot is white, black, or silver? I mean, my God, the colors cars came in back then!

Here’s what changed between now and then. You’ve always been able to walk into a dealer and buy a car “off the lot.” But there was a time when you could also walk into the dealer and sit down with the option sheet to build exactly the car you wanted. You’d put down a deposit, the order would be sent to the factory, and a few weeks—or months—later, a car built to your precise specs was delivered to the dealer.

Not everybody was willing to wait for that Plum Crazy car, though, even if that’s what they really wanted. And since dealers could see what people were custom ordering, most were willing to order a few unique cars to sit on the lot until the day that Plum Crazy customer came in with cash in his pocket.

So why doesn’t it still work like that? A lot changed, but the biggest factor was the way dealers pay for cars.

Dealers buy cars on credit. Back in the day, they only paid interest until the car sold. Cars sitting on the lot not selling cost the dealer money, but it was an acceptable amount.

But that changed in the late 1970s and early ’80s. In the wake of the 1979 energy crisis and the staggering inflation of 1980–81, the car companies introduced the practice of “curtailment”: after 90 days, dealers had to start paying down the principal in addition to the interest.

Suddenly, holding inventory that would take a while to sell got a hell of a lot less appealing. So dealers starting ordering “safe” colors they knew were more likely to sell before that 90-day clock ran out. And today every car is white, black, or silver.

So what the hell does this have to do with Turquoise Rickenbackers? The exact payment terms vary from dealer to dealer, but the principle is the same: guitars hanging on the wall have to be paid for—often in as little as 30 days. Guitars on the wall equal bills you have to pay and cash you can’t spend elsewhere.

Over Rickenbacker’s entire history, around 80% of all guitars they’ve ever built have been Fireglo, Jetglo, or Mapleglo. Or white, black, and silver, if you like. Dealers know they’re gonna sell, and that means less cash hanging on the wall, so that’s what they order.

That’s why colors like Turquoise command a premium today. No matter how ubiquitous teal and purple were at the time, dealers just weren’t willing to risk having too many of those guitars hanging on the wall too long.

I’d call them…uncommon today, not rare. There were years during Turquoise’s run where it appears they accounted for up to two or three percent of annual production—which is actually fairly respectable for a non-“big three” color. Still, uncommon.

Some people “got it,” though. There are more than a few guitars circulating that must have been custom orders: 381V69s (click to learn more) and WB 360s (click to learn more) for example. And when Rickenbacker ran out the 360/12V64 (click to learn more) in 2000 and told people they could be had in any color, a bunch got ordered in Turquoise.

To me, those deluxe models (click to learn more) are where Turquoise really shines. There’s just something about the way the white binding pops against the Turquoise…it’s really striking. It just doesn’t work nearly as well on standard models like the 330.

Ironically, given its intentional callback to 1950s-era Turquoise Blue guitars—which featured gold plastics—I just don’t think it looks great on either the 660 or 325V59 (click to learn more), which both featured gold plastics. Again, it needs that contrast against white to really shine. Your opinion may of course vary—I’m just letting you know where I stand.

Turquoise outlived the 1990s teal and purple craze. In fact, it looks like the highest production year was 2000—driven in no small part by all those runout 360/12V64s. Numbers would begin to drop after that, however, and Turquoise was officially discontinued in 2003, with production wrapping in 2004.

Today, the Jazz cup is an instant visual shorthand for the 1990s. You look at it and immediately know when it came from.

Turquoise Rickenbackers are a little like that. There is absolutely no mistaking the decade that gave birth to them. But unlike teal carpeting and purple Formica, Turquoise somehow escaped the 1990s without becoming a punchline.

Maybe that’s because Rickenbacker had been there before. Turquoise may have been the hottest color of 1992, but it was also a Rickenbacker color nearly forty years earlier—and that distinction imbues it with a bit more legitimacy.

Trendy? Absolutely. Dated? I don’t think so, no.

We have previously discussed the special run Noir basses and guitars (click to learn more), but there were three—well, technically four—1980s-era 4003s that walked so the Noirs could run. And since it seems nobody on Reverb can keep them straight, let’s try to clear it up.

The first one—or technically two—wasn’t an official model. When the Black Hardware/Black Trim era (click to learn more) began in 1985, certain finishes came standard with black bits: Red, White, Midnight Blue, Silver, and Mapleglo. But other stock finishes—like Fireglo and Jetglo—could be custom-ordered with black hardware and black trim. And it didn’t take people long to figure out that it looked pretty badass on Jetglo instruments.

Almost everything that could be black was. Finish, binding, truss rod cover, pickguard, tuners, pickup cases, pickup covers and surrounds, bridgeplate…all black. The only parts to escape were screws, bridge and saddles, and the jackplate—all wear pieces where a black finish could scratch or flake off during assembly or normal adjustment. Even with those little bits of chrome…still pretty badass.

Now about that “one or technically two” model bit—remember that, like today, there were two 4003 models at the time: the 4003 and the 4003S. BH/BT examples of both exist—I happen to think the deluxe 4003 with its binding and triangle inlays looks a little bit better than the 4003S, but the S looks pretty darn good too. So, technically two.

Truth be told, I just realized I’ve opened a can of worms because there were also five (click to learn more) and eight-string (click to learn more) versions of the 4003 during the BH/BT era and, sure enough, I found a five-string example the moment I remembered that.

You will note, however, one difference on the “extra strings” models: the toaster pickup’s cover isn’t black. They never bothered making one.

So should I count these or not? I’m going to say no—there can’t be more than a handful of either out there. We’ll just say they exist and leave it at that.

So that’s the first and maybe second of the “none more black” 4003s. Now this is pure speculation here, but I have to imagine somebody saw some of those first few custom orders go across the shop floor and say, “Hey, that looks pretty badass!” because in 1986 we saw our second—and first official—“none more black” model: the Shadow.

We have a more detailed write-up on the Shadow you can read here, but here are the key takeaways.

Rickenbacker took the 4003 BH/BT template and tweaked it slightly, replacing the black top binding with two-ply black and checkered binding, trading the silver-top knobs for black Kurz-Kach vintage knobs, and swapping black dot position markers for the standard 4003’s inlaid triangles. Fifty were produced for Guitar Center.

As cool as it looks, the Shadow is especially prized today for the very slim neck Guitar Center requested—much closer to vintage 4001 specs than the beefy necks production 4003s wore at the time.

The Shadow is also notable because it may be the first example of what we think of today as a Rickenbacker “special run”: nothing on it was really new, but the particular combination of existing features was.

Okay, two down, one to go. And this one really commits to the bit. What’s the biggest thing left that could be black but isn’t? Allow me to introduce the Blackstar.

The 4003S Blackstar replaced the standard Rickenbacker bubinga fingerboard with a black-painted maple board with white pin-dot fret markers. Why maple? Presumably because it held the Jetglo finish better than bubinga.

The Blackstar did stray a bit from the “none more black” ethos, however, with a chrome case on the neck pickup, chrome bridge pickup cover, chrome mute screws, chrome tuner bushings—and chrome lettering on the truss rod cover. Because why not?

And yes, before you point it out, there were a handful of 5-string Blackstars, but no, we’re not counting those either. At least they weren’t breaking the rules with their chrome toaster case.

200 Blackstars were produced between 1988 and 1990.

So those are the three (maybe four) “none more black” basses from the 1980s. And here are the simple rules for telling them apart:

Black fingerboard? That’s a Blackstar.

Checkered binding and black dot inlays? That’s a Shadow.

None of the above? 4003 BH/BT or 4003S BH/BT.

This should probably be required reading for Reverb postings.

I have a hard time putting “why” into words, though.

There are certainly some tangible things I—and anybody—could like about the 460. They’re small and lightweight, have a Telecaster-ish low deck height (click to learn more) that makes fingerpicking comfortable, and while you still get the Rickenbacker chime from the toaster pickups, the solid body gives it a bit more sustain.

The same thing can be said of the 450 though. So why is the 460 my favorite?

Because it’s kind of stupid. Let me explain.

Let me put it this way: who here is old enough to remember the Cadillac Cimarron?

Introduced in 1982 and positioned as an entry level luxury car, the Cimarron is widely regarded as one of the worst cars GM has ever built. Not because it was poorly built or unreliable—well, it actually kind of was, but no worse than other domestic cars of the day—but because of what it actually was.

And what it actually was was a Chevrolet Cavalier—Chevrolet’s entry-level four-door small sedan—with a Cadillac badge, a different grille, and leather seats. MSRP on the Chevy? Around $7,000 (about $23,500 today). And the Cimarron? $12,500—or $42,000 today. For a tarted-up Cavalier.

I mean obviously there was a bit more to it than that, but if you park the two side by side and squint…it’s basically the same car. The automotive press was not kind, and most consumers were unimpressed.

So why bring this up? Well, if the Rickenbacker 450 was a Chevy Cavalier…

…the 460 was a Cadillac Cimarron.

But as much as the automotive press savaged the Cimarron, there were still a handful of people who looked at it and said, “Yeah, that’s the car for me. I WANT a fancy Cavalier.”

I guess I would have been one of them.

Okay, okay, as we’ll see that’s not an entirely fair comparison. But there are a lot of similarities. I mean, the 450 was a neck-through (click here to learn more) solidbody with two pickups, a floating intonated bridge, no binding, dot inlays, and pickguard-mounted mono output. At an MSRP of $224.50 (about $2,300 today) it was the cheapest full-scale two-pickup guitar Rickenbacker offered. It was the “entry-level” Rickenbacker.

The 460 took the standard 450 and tarted it up, adding triangle inlays, neck and top binding, and the fifth/blend knob (click here to learn more) missing on the 450. These additional features raised the MSRP to $284.50 (about $2,900 today), making it the “deluxe, entry-level” Rickenbacker.

Now to be fair, this still only made it the second cheapest Rickenbacker two-pickup model. So it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the Cimarron—which was pricier than Chevy’s most expensive sedan. Still, a “deluxe entry-level” guitar sounds more than a little contradictory, doesn’t it?

That’s what I really love about the 460. Yes, it’s comfortable and it sounds great. But more than that, it’s just kind of…unnecessary. Yet it exists.

Just as most drivers didn’t see the point of the Cimarron, most guitarists didn’t seem to see the point of the 460 either—despite remaining in the line for 20 years, it’s one of Rickenbacker’s rarer models. Let’s see if I can share the 460 love with you.

First of all, yes, you’ve likely seen me walk through the following sequence before. But it’s absolutely worth repeating, so bear with me as we speedrun our way through the 400 series lineage.

The tulip-shaped Combo 400 (click to learn more), Roger Rossmeisl’s (click to learn more) first original Rickenbacker design, debuted in 1956.

In early 1957, the two-pickup Combo 450 (click to learn more) joined the line.

Later that same year, Rossmeisl reshaped the 450’s lower cutaway to improve upper fret access.

And for the 1958 model year, Rossmeisl scooped out the inside of the 450’s upper tulip-shaped cutaway to create the cresting wave (click to learn more) body shape that lives on in today’s 620 (click to learn more) and 660.

See? Fast.

Let’s look at the 1959 price list to understand where the 450 fit into the product line.

Let’s begin by saying that while the Combo 600, 650, 800, and 850 were still technically on the price list, they weren’t actually being produced anymore. So let’s just ignore those.

Once we ignore those, we’re left with three basic categories of guitars:

1. Student/entry-level solidbody guitars, in short and full scale. Standard features (click to learn more) only.

2. Premium semi-hollowbody guitars in short and full scale, available with both standard and deluxe features.

3. Premium full-bodied, full-scale semi-hollowbody jazz guitars, in both standard and deluxe forms.

Guess which category the 450 fit in?

Now explain to me how the 460 fits into that hierarchy.

1961—1962

The 450 saw two significant changes in 1961. First, the pickguard changed from gold anodized aluminum to white plastic. But the larger change was to the slab body—the thickness shrank from 1 5/8 inches to 1 1/4 inches, and the edges gained front and back contouring in the wear areas for greater player comfort.

This revised body served as the platform for the new 460.

Production on the 460 began late in the year. Most features carried over from the 450: a maple through-neck (click to learn more) with walnut headstock wings, maple body wings, nickel-plated Kluson Deluxe tuners, a gold back-painted Plexiglas truss rod cover, white pickguard, two toaster pickups, and a bridgeplate-mounted standard Rickenbacker six-saddle bridge hidden beneath a chrome clip-in ashtray cover.

From there it got fancy.

While the 460 had the 450’s new thinner body, it lost the contoured top in favor of single-ply white binding around the edges. Mostly.

I’m not honestly sure whether this detail first appeared on the 460 or the 4001 (click to learn more)—which also launched in 1961—but it echoed an element that had already become part of Rickenbacker’s visual identity: the through-neck section of the body was left bindingless at the butt of the guitar.

This little gap in the binding already existed on the semi-hollowbody guitars, of course, but there was a practical reason for it there: the tailpiece “ramp” interrupted the edge of the body. On the 460 it appears to have been more a continuation of an established design language than a functional necessity.

The fancy continued on the neck, which, unlike the 450, was also bound and carried deluxe triangle inlays. Now you may look at this picture and think to yourself, “Shouldn’t a 1961 deluxe guitar have crushed-pearl inlays?” The answer to that question is complicated. 1961 Capris had the same poured-resin inlays they’d had since their introduction in 1958. The New Capris (click to learn more) replaced the “original” Capris mid-year, and they did indeed have crushed-pearl inlays.

Now, this wasn’t the crushed pearl you’re probably picturing—it had much larger flakes—but it was crushed pearl nonetheless. Despite that, other deluxe models from 1961—including the 4001, the F-body guitars (click to learn more), and the 460—had poured resin. By mid-1962, the New Capris would lose the crushed pearl as well.

That said, there is at least one prototype 460 from July 1961 with those large-flake crushed-pearl inlays.

This guitar also featured a gold plastic pickguard and a two-knob master volume/master tone setup that would not carry over to the production model.

The last “extra” the 460 got over the 450 was functional rather than cosmetic: a blend knob (click to learn more).

The blend knob had been introduced on the New Capri models earlier in the year. Unlike the binding and inlays, however, the blend knob was standard on both deluxe and standard Capris, and it would go on to be included on almost every new model introduced after 1961.

Which means it’s not strange that the 460 got it, but it is kind of strange that the 450 never did. I suppose it’s just one more data point reinforcing the 450’s entry-level status.

There was one “deluxe signifier” that the 460 didn’t get, however: Rick-O-Sound stereo wiring (click to learn more). To be fair, two face-mounted output jacks would have looked strange, but somebody must have decided that moving the output to the side would have added more cost than they were willing to put into an entry-level guitar—even on the deluxe entry-level version. So no Rick-O-Sound for you!

1963—1969

Changes to the 460 over its life were—I suppose, appropriately—an odd mixture of the evolutions that the 450 and deluxe models underwent at the same time. Those changes began in 1963 when the donor 450’s headstock wings changed from walnut to maple. So too did the 460’s.

At the same time, you’ll notice from the photo above that the Kluson Deluxe tuners found on the 450 were replaced by pearl-buttoned Van Ghent tuners (click to learn more) on the 460. While the Van Ghents would most notably be utilized as the standard tuner on the New Style 360 when it launched in 1964, I’m fairly certain the 1963 460 marked their first “standard fitment.”

The conflict between entry-level and deluxe reared its ugly head later that same year when the 450 got a new bridge: a floating, one-piece compensated unit replaced the standard Rickenbacker six-saddle adjustable bridge. Did the 460 retain the “better” old bridge? It did not.

The new bridge sat on a shorter bridgeplate, and the pickguard’s bridge cutout was refined to accommodate the new layout—and help hold the floating bridge in place.

The following year—1964—deluxe won out over entry-level as two features that appeared on the New Style 360 migrated to the 460: proper crushed-pearl inlays and silver-topped knobs.

We’ve discussed the “blank-top-with-indicator-line” (mid-1964) to “labeled-top-with-indicator-line” (mid-1965) to “blank-top-with-indicator-dot” (late 1966) evolution of the silver-topped knobs before, and the 460 followed just as you’d expect. The 450 would continue to wear the old Kurz-Kach knobs until mid-1965.

Of course, there were line-wide updates that affected the 460 as well. 1964 saw the paddle-shaped headstock used on all 6-string guitars lose about a quarter of an inch in width—creating the narrow “vintage” shape most people associate with 1960s Rickenbackers.

At the same time, “MADE IN U.S.A.” appeared on the truss rod cover below the Rickenbacker logo at U.K. distributor Rose Morris’s request.

The rest of the 1960s saw only minor changes—and none of them specific to the 460. Use of Van Ghent tuners on the deluxe guitars—including the 460—petered out in 1965, replaced by the Kluson Deluxes in use pretty much everywhere else in the line.

The most notable change of this era occurred in mid-1965 when the bridgeplate on all so-equipped guitars reverted to the longer version used prior to 1963. Once again the pickguard cutout was modified to accommodate the change.

The “MADE IN U.S.A.” imprint moved from below and parallel to the Rickenbacker logo around 1968 to above the nut, perpendicular to the logo. Higher volume models also had their model number printed above “MADE IN U.S.A.” The 460 did not qualify.

But we have to have at least one example of “Rickenbacker’s gonna Rickenbacker” in this story, and so here it is. Remember the whole “unbound neck-through section for brand visual continuity” thing? In May 1966 there was a production batch of 460s with binding around the top’s entire perimeter. Because of course there was.

Not gonna lie: it looks pretty good.

This oddity makes more sense, however, when you flip the guitar over and note that this batch of guitars featured a set-neck instead of the normal through-neck.

These would be the only 460s built with set-necks or full top binding.

1970—1982

Here’s something that feels somewhat ironic today. When it was first introduced in 1969 on the 381 (click to learn more) as the “381 Coil,” the Higain pickup was seen as a premium upgrade over the aging toaster. So it should come as no surprise that the 460 got the new pickup well before the 450, with the “transitional” threaded-stock polepieces first appearing on the 460 in late 1970.

To show you just exactly where the 450 fell in the line-up, consider this: it and its one-pickup cousin, the 420 (click to learn more), were the very last two Rickenbacker models to ditch toasters for Higains in 1974.

And yes, that 1972 460 above has glueglo (click to learn more)—something that until recently we thought only happened on guitars with checkered binding. I have no explanation for this, but you can read more about it here.

From 1973 to 1975, the 460 ran through all the normal transitional era (click to learn more) changes—button top Higains (mid-1973), poured resin inset triangle inlays (mid-1973), and injection molded raised-letter truss rod covers (early 1975). By mid-1975, the 460 had reached its final form.

I don’t have a lot of good pictures of 460s built in the late 1970s and early 1980s because there just aren’t that many. It looks like none at all were built between 1975 and 1979. While the 460 remained on the price list until the great pruning of 1985, there don’t appear to have been any made after 1982—not that anyone really noticed.

The 460 wasn’t the only Rickenbacker model to ever go out with a whimper and not a bang. Which to be honest, is the same way it appeared.

I still love the damn thing, though.

We talk about every other specification and feature that exists—sometimes in excruciating detail—but not the one feature that almost every single model has: side dots.

Because who pays attention to side dots? I mean, when you’re playing you might look down every once in a while, but as a feature of a guitar worth talking about? They’re background noise.

But there are rules, and we might as well document them on the slim chance someone wakes up at three in the morning with a burning question about Rickenbacker side dots.

So here are the rules: instruments with white binding get black dots, and instruments with no binding or black binding get white dots. Makes sense, no?

But you know what’s coming next, right? Because this is Rickenbacker, after all.

Except when they are red.

Now you’re going to have to trust me on this and be willing to squint a lot because for some reason great detail photos of side dots are few and far between. But there are two periods when red dots were the rule on guitars with white binding.

The Capri models of 1958 introduced the idea of “deluxe” models, and red side dots were one of the features that distinguished them.

You may need to use your imagination a little bit, but I promise you those are red. Note also the three dots at the twelfth fret on this prototype Capri!

And no, the red dots weren’t just a prototype thing. Here they are again in 1959:

Admittedly they’re not a Coca-Cola bright red—they do have 67 years of grime and ambered clear coat—but they’re red nevertheless.

1960, 1961, 1962…zoom in and squint and you’ll see it. They’re red. And, of course, you know about this one from 1963:

I’d love to show you a close-up photo of the red dots on George Harrison’s 1963 360/12, but who cares enough about the side dots to take a picture? Regardless, this guitar has red side dots too. I promise.

Let me prove it. Just to show how much effort they were putting into getting the 360/12C63 reissue of that guitar as close to the original as possible, consider this: when the guitar was launched in 2005, its red side dots got almost as much attention as the internal X-bracing (click to learn more).

The 360/12C63 has retained its red side dots to this day.

So why, then, did I begin this article by saying deluxe guitars with white binding have black dots? Because, all things considered, the red side dots didn’t last all that long. The black dots started appearing in late 1964, and have been the rule ever since. More or less.

Now it would be very logical and clean to say the change coincided with the launch of the new round-top 360 New Style in 1964, so of course it didn’t…exactly.

When the 6-string version of the 360 New Style launched in early 1964, it did so with the same red dots everything else had used up to that point. But when the 12-string appeared in December, it had something more than the six extra strings: black side dots.

Was that the end of red side dots? Close enough. I won’t say you won’t find 1965 guitars with red side dots…but you won’t find many.

It’s well established that during this period when the shop floor ran out of “something,” they’d grab whatever was handy. That likely explains the handful of red-dot 1965 guitars you’ll find.

The rule was established. But as always with Rickenbacker, you can never rule out the exceptions.

So, the end? Not quite. Red dots would rear their tiny little heads once again in 1974.

Sometime around May, instruments began leaving the factory with red dots. Intentionally, but not due to a spec change.

Here’s what former shop employee Dale Fortune has to say about it:

“…for some reason we used Red side dot/fret marker material when we ran out of the black stuff. Don't know why, it was in the supply room and when Dick Burke said use this, we did. It wasn't used as a special thing, but at random, mostly on the 480s as I remember.”

And here’s former employee Mark Arnquist’s recollection:

“Bill would go buy rolls of the stuff and some times the company would be out of stock of the black PVC material .

We used Blue,Red , green , Brown instead of black. In 1976 we even had a guy that kept installing three dots at the 12th fret .... these would get a blue and red dot scheme.”

There’s some disconnect between those two tellings—but let’s note that both came about 30 years after the fact and time blurs details. Regardless, there’s a common theme: we ran out of the regular stuff, so we used what was available.

Except…it wasn’t just the 480, like Dale Fortune says. It was pretty much everything made between May and August of 1974.

And mostly what they made between May and August of 1974 was 4001s. A lot of 4001s.

This is not some rare phenomenon I have uncovered. Google “red-dot 1974 4001” and you’ll get plenty of results. That said, I’m not sure it’s widely known that pretty much everything made in that window had red dots. After all, since almost everything that came out of the factory at that point was a 4001, it’s easy to miss.

But the sheer volume of red-dot instruments made in this window raises an interesting question. Who exactly ran out of the black material?

I mean, I can see grabbing a roll of red out of the storeroom to use for a week or so while you get more black in. But you had to have a lot of red rolls in the storeroom to cover a four-month window.

It sounds more to me like their supplier ran out of the black material and asked, “Will red do?”

I mean, that’s just a guess, but it fits the evidence pretty well. As to the whole rainbow of colors Mark Arnquist calls out…it hasn’t surfaced. I sure hope it does, though!

So yeah: red dots are a real thing, and frankly the only thing that makes Rickenbacker side dots worth mentioning. Because who pays attention to side dots?

You could custom-order one of those colors with “normal” white plastics and chrome hardware—and guitars so outfitted absolutely exist—but black was the default.

At the same time, you could custom-order the “other” stock finishes with black hardware and black trim. And there are a lot of “blacked out” Jetglo guitars out there. I think that looks pretty badass.

Ruby also looks pretty sick!

But then there’s Fireglo.

Could it be custom-ordered with black hardware and black trim? Absolutely. Should it be? I’ll let you make that decision.

Speaking for myself—and your results may vary—woof.

To me? It’s an abomination.

Okay, okay, that may be a little harsh, but that box wasn’t clicked many times—there are only seven BH/BT instruments on the Register—and to me it’s pretty clear why.

Black trim—but not black hardware—first appeared in 1974. It was limited to White, Mapleglo, and Walnut/Autumnglo instruments only. And that’s smart. It looks good there.

Did they offer black trim on Fireglo in the 1970s? They did not. They knew.

Look. I lived through the BH/BT era. I thought they were cool back in the day. Twenty years later I thought they looked hopelessly dated. Now I think they’re cool again.

Except Fireglo. Ouch.

This particular guitar is for sale on Reverb right now. If it appeals to you, you could make an offer…but who hurt you?

Want to see more weird guitars? Scroll down to the “Rare & Unusual Instruments” section in the Rickenbacker 101 Archive!

Me? I like weird. So the transitional guitars from around 1969 to 1973 are my particular jam. Half-vintage, half-modern mongrels just do it for me.

So I am on a mission to document every possible combination of features I can find on a transitional-era 360—and it seems unlikely I’ll run out of new combinations any time soon. Here’s another one.

Yes, I have laid out a month-by-month guide (click to learn more) that lays out what you should expect to see, month by month, on guitars made between late 1969 and late 1973. But that’s all it is: a guide. Exceptions abound. That’s what I love about this era.

So what should we expect from this July 1970 360? A 24-fret neck, introduced in April, and a bound headstock, added in June. Vintage-era crushed pearl inlays, but with a new 24th-fret marker. Transitional Higains that first appeared in April. And old-style checkered binding on the back. Kinda like this:

Instead, we have this:

This one has a 21-fret neck with an unbound headstock. Transitional Higains, sure, but that neck “should” have been gone by July.

The facts say otherwise. And that is awesome.

So why are there so darn many 360s that break the “rules” from this period? You make a change, you move on, right?

Today, sure. But the Rickenbacker factory in 1970 was a different place. Today they run guitars through the factory in batches of 25 to 50 at a time. In 1970, the shop was well on its way to an all-time low of only 8 employees total. Even if they had the demand to build that many of one model at the time—which they absolutely did not—they didn’t have the manpower to do it.

Rickenbacker was only getting orders for a handful of 360s every month, and that’s all they were building. And with such a small work force, efficiency would have been key.

So let me start speculating.

At this point, 360/12s still only had 21 frets—and still had toasters. So if you had an order come in for a 360/12 or two, might as well keep the 21-fret body tooling out and use it for that 6-string order that came in at the same time?

But the spec sheet said “Higains go on 6-strings, toasters on 12-strings.” So that 6-string guitar with the “wrong” neck gets the “right” pickups.

And 56 years later we look at it and wonder what the hell happened.

This particular guitar may have a simpler answer though: look at the date codes on those CTS pots. 1966. This guitar may have been gathering dust in the back of the shop somewhere, and they slapped new pickups on it. We’ve seen stranger things

Honestly, we’ll never know. Our month-by-month feature timelines imply a degree of precision that probably never existed on the factory floor. More often than not, though, I suspect it came down to a simple question: what did they need to build, and what was the most efficient way to do it at that precise moment?

The point is this: there are a bunch of reasons this guitar could exist. Not knowing the real reason why is half the fun. And that’s why I love transitional 360s.

Want to see more weird guitars? Scroll down to the “Rare & Unusual Instruments” section in the Rickenbacker 101 Archive!

So believe me when I say it takes a lot to genuinely surprise me. But while doing the research for our 420/425 overview (click to learn more) article, I stumbled across one of those things.

Now if you read that article, this fact is already in there. But I realize that’s a long article that not everyone is going to read all the way through, and this detail is just so…weird I felt it deserved its own quick write-up. So here it is.

Nobody looks closely at the backs of guitars. What’s there to see, really? All the interesting stuff is happening on the other side.

And in this particular case we’re talking about the 420—an entry-level model that collectors mostly ignore. So it’s not a big surprise that nobody has really talked about this before. Who would notice? Or care?

But it’s just so damn weird you need to know about it.

If I asked you to picture the back of a 420, this is what you’d probably come up with:

Now there will be a handful of “well, actually…” folks who’ll point out—correctly—that most 420s had a set neck, not a through-neck, so we should really be picturing this instead:

And, yeah, they’re not wrong. So—apart from that difference, how would you describe those two backs?

I’d wager most of you came up with the same answer I did: flat. Maybe you’d call out the slight contouring around the waist, but essentially flat. That’s what the back of a 420 looks like.

Except for about a year—from late 1965 to late 1966. Then it looked like this:

That slight contour at the waist you expected to see? It just…keeps going. Basically around the entire back.

Think that’s an isolated example? How about this?

Or this?

Or this?

Or this?

When I stumbled across the first one, I assumed it had been modified—maybe by someone trying to turn it into a 650. But then I found another one. And another one.

And the same thing kept going through my head: that’s just not right.

Now I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I do know.

This “feature” appears to be limited to the 420 and ES-17 (click to learn more). Set-neck 425s and 450s (click to learn more) produced during the same period have “normal” contouring on the back.

The earliest example I’ve found dates to October 1965. The last is from November 1966. By January 1967, it was gone.

In typical Rickenbacker fashion, there are also 420s and ES-17s with normal backs from inside this window because of course there are.

And that’s it. That’s all I know. And that’s because, as far as I can tell, nobody has ever noticed this—or bothered to write anything about it before. I’ve tried every search term I could think of, and they all come back empty.

I have no explanation, no insight, no grand theory. I just found this really weird thing, and I wanted you to know about it.

So now you do.

Most of the time, an idea grabs me so completely that I just drop everything and start writing.

But then there’s “the list.” Whenever I think of a topic that deserves an article but doesn’t spark my interest right then, it goes onto the list. At the moment there are more than fifty of them patiently waiting their turn. About half are partially written, abandoned when something shinier came along. The rest are simply…waiting for inspiration.

The 420/425 has been camping near the bottom of that list for well over a year.

That’s a little unfair, really. It’s an important model with a long production run, and once this article is finished I’ll probably have to go back and add links to it from dozens of other articles across the site.

But I’ll be honest—it still isn’t speaking to me. Let’s see if writing it changes that.

Few Rickenbacker models get misidentified more often than the 420 and 425. And that’s one hundred percent down to Rickenbacker screwing up the model number from the very start.

You see, there’s a rule in Rickenbacker model numbering: models that end with a 5 have a vibrato, and models that end with an 0 don’t. Yet when the 425 was introduced in 1958, it did not have a vibrato.

Now the rule was only a year old at that point, but still: how do you forget a brand new rule? Or, worse yet, why establish it only to ignore it immediately?

The 425—despite its brand new (if wrong) model number—wasn’t actually a brand new model. You could argue it replaced the Combo 400, but that’s not quite right either. If anything, it was more of a rebrand than a replacement. Let me show you why.

This is the 1956 Combo 400 (click to learn more). It was the third electric Spanish model offered by Rickenbacker after F.C. Hall’s purchase of the company in 1953, and the first Rickenbacker designed by Roger Rossmeisl (click to learn more).

Hall’s first two offerings—the 1954 Combo 600 and 800 (click to learn more)—were almost more proofs of concept than finished products, and he took what he had learned from them to develop Rossmeisl’s design brief for the Combo 400.

That brief called for a simple, scalable solidbody entry-level guitar. Which the Combo 400 absolutely was—even if it looked a little funny with its tulip-shaped top.

In 1957 the Combo 400 family grew with the addition of the Combo 450 (click to learn more)—a Combo 400 with an extra pickup. Later in the year, the Combo 450—but not the Combo 400—underwent surgery on the lower cutaway to improve player access to the higher frets.

1958 brought the model’s most dramatic visual change: the introduction of the cresting wave (click to learn more) cutaway.

But the new design is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Look closely at the new upper horn and you’ll see that the outer profile hasn’t changed at all. Instead, Rossmeisl simply scooped away the inside edge to create the distinctive cresting wave silhouette.

Now we’ve been talking about the two-pickup Combo 450, but the one-pickup model underwent the same redesign at the same time. And with that redesign came a new name: the Combo 425.

Before we talk about the guitar itself, we need to briefly talk about its name. Not the 425 bit—we’ve already established that’s wrong—but the “Combo” bit.

Rickenbacker price lists continued to refer to solidbodied guitars as the “Combo Series” through 1969. Collectors don’t. But collectors also don’t entirely agree on where the Combo name should stop.

There are two primary schools of thought. The first says the name “Combo” belongs only to the tulip-bodied guitars. Once the cresting wave bodies arrive, the Combo name dies with them.

The second school argues that the Combo era ends with the 1961 redesign, when the 425 and 450 shrank from1 5/8-inch to 1 1/4-inch bodies and gained contoured edges.

Both arguments have merit, but simply because I think it’s cleaner I’m going with “the Combo died when the tulip did” school in this article.

So back to the guitar. There were four major changes—apart from the body shape—between the last Combo 400 and the first 425.

First, while the Combo 450 had launched with Rickenbacker’s brand new toaster pickup in place of the Combo 400’s DeArmond unit (click to learn more), the Combo 400 itself was never similarly upgraded. The 425, however, launched with a toaster from the very beginning.

And not only was the pickup new, its location was too, moving from the neck to the bridge position. The pickguard it mounted to was now white plastic instead of the anodized aluminum found on the older Combo 400—and the redesigned 450.

That made sense, given the overall design language Rickenbacker was developing. At this point in the company’s history, two features consistently signified student or entry-level models: white plastics and the so-called “aluminum foil” truss rod cover (click to learn more).

The 425 was clearly positioned as Rickenbacker’s entry-level full-sized model both by the design elements we’ve discussed and by its price. At $149.50—about $1,700 today—it cost a full $100 (about $1,150 today) less than a 330. The two-pickup 450 added another $35 (about $400 today).

For comparison, the 1958 Duo-Sonic—a model that occupied roughly the same place as the 425 in Fender’s lineup—carried the exact same $149.50 price tag. The Telecaster cost $199.50 (about $2,250 today), putting it very close to the 450.

That’s almost certainly no coincidence. As Fender’s former exclusive distributor—and a part owner—F.C. Hall knew the company’s products, pricing, and market positioning as well as anyone. He clearly knew who he believed the competition to be.

Now that we’ve established the 425’s historical context and its place in the Rickenbacker lineup, let’s run through the year-by-year changes to see how the model evolved.

1958-1960

Like the Combo 400 it replaced, the 425 launched with neck-through construction (click to learn more)—which feels a little ironic given that today neck-through construction is usually associated with high-end or boutique instruments rather than entry-level guitars. The one-piece through-neck section and body wings were all solid maple. At launch, the 425 featured maple headstock wings.

Almost immediately, the maple headstock wings gave way to walnut. The 425 retained the open-geared Grover Sta-Tite tuners (click to learn more) however—another signifier of its entry-level positioning.

While the pickup and its location may have changed from the Combo 400’s, the controls did not. The 425 featured volume and tone controls, as well as a two-way switch that either did nothing or engaged an early Telecaster-style low-pass “strangle switch” for darker tones. The output jack also remained face-mounted.

The bridge was equally familiar. The 425 utilized the same bridgeplate and standard six-saddle bridge that all solidbodied Rickenbackers had used up to that point—hidden beneath a chrome “ashtray” bridge cover that clipped onto the pickguard. The serial number was stamped into the bridgeplate.

Flipping the guitar over, we can see that the thoroughly useless saxophone ring from the Combo 400 carried over to the 425—although it also had more useful traditional strap buttons. You’ll also notice two white dots in the neck-through section.

Those dots are the relics of tooling locating pins used to hold the instrument during the manufacturing process.

Usually it’s fairly easy to narrow down—if not always pinpoint—when a spec change occurred. Not so with a quartet of changes that occurred sometime over the 425’s first three years of production.

Complicating matters is the serial numbering scheme (click to learn more) in place at the time. Unlike the scheme used from 1961 onward, which tells us the year and month (or even week) of production—or the system used on other Rickenbacker models at the time, which at least identifies the production year—the 425’s serial numbers from 1958 to 1960 provide almost no useful dating information. Pot codes are our best bet—when we have them.

So here’s what we know changed over that period, even if we don’t know exactly when. My best guess is late 1958 or early 1959.

First, working from top to bottom, the Grover Sta-Tite tuners were replaced by Kluson Deluxe units with white plastic buttons.

There’s one interesting detail that the photo above—which shows a Fireglow guitar—doesn’t make obvious. Here are the colors the 425 was offered during this period:

1958: Jet Black (Jetglo), Natural (Mapleglo), and Montezuma Brown.

1959-1960: Black Diamond (Jetglo), Natural, and Fireglow (Fireglo).

On every finish except Black, the neck and headstock were painted to match the body. Black guitars, however, retained Natural-finished necks and headstocks. So if you see a Black 425 from this era with a black neck or headstock, it’s almost certainly been refinished.

The second change was arguably the most consequential: the single pickup moved farther away from the bridge, slightly mellowing the guitar’s tone.

Change number three, also shown above, saw the controls reoriented into a diamond pattern.

For change number four, we have to flip the guitar over.

The cursed saxophone ring was at long last banished from the Rickenbacker line.

Those four changes are frustratingly hard to date. Fortunately, the changes introduced in 1961 are much easier to pin down.

1961-1962

It should become clear relatively quickly why some collectors consider 1961 as the end of the Combo era. Starting in May, many of the cruder elements of the 425’s design that had carried over from the Combo 400 began a refinement process that would carry into 1962.

And thanks to the new-for-1961 year/month serial numbering system, it’s also much easier to pinpoint exactly when those changes occurred.

The first—and most consequential—arrived in May 1961, when the 425’s body shrank from 1 5/8 inches to 1 1/4 inches, and its edges became contoured for greater player comfort.

At the same time, the shape of the pickguard smoothed out slightly, with what had been angles giving way to gentle curves—a process that would continue on into 1962. The material changed as well—transitioning to “sign white” Plexiglas on all models with white plastics.

One year later, in May 1962, a number of changes brought the 425 much closer to its definitive 1960s specifications. At the top, the wings of the headstock changed from walnut back to maple, and the “aluminum foil” truss rod cover gave way to the white backpainted Plexiglas truss rod cover that was on its way to becoming the company’s standard.

A number of changes happened at the other end as well. The pickup moved even farther from the bridge—to what was essentially the exact middle position—the pickguard’s shape softened a little further still, and the bridge underwent a significant redesign.

The 425’s bridgeplate was shortened by about half an inch, and the six-saddle bridge was replaced by a floating, one-piece compensated unit. The entire assembly was neatly framed by a new pickguard cutout that also helped hold the bridge in place.

And finally, the last link to the Combo 400—the tool-locating pin holes on the back—disappeared for good.

But we can’t talk about the 425 and 1962 without discussing one of the oddest Rickenbacker models of the early 1960s: the private label Contello/Symfonia Grand (click to learn more).

Produced for the Mann Music School, the Contello/Symfonia Grand was based on the 425, but featured a number of cosmetic changes and one significant structural departure—a two-piece body with a set-neck. The model would ultimately prove an important proof of concept for a guitar that debuted the following year.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of the most famous—if not the most famous—425s was a 1962 model (click to learn more) bought by a pre-fame lad from Liverpool during a 1963 trip to the United States to visit his sister.

1963-1964

The Contello/Symfonia Grand proved that music schools were a lucrative market with strong demand for private-label student instruments. Rickenbacker responded with two models (click to learn more) in 1963: the ES-16, based on the short-scale 1000 (click to learn more), and the 425-based ES-17.

If the ES-17 looks like a stock 425 with a funny truss rod cover, that’s because it is a stock 425 with a funny truss rod cover. Buyers could order the guitar with their own name on the headstock or with “Electro” branding—once Rickenbacker’s primary brand, now relegated to private-label duty.

In classic waste-not-want-not Rickenbacker fashion, early ES-17 truss rod covers simply riveted an Electro lap steel badge onto a blank Rickenbacker cover. But by early 1964 Electro guitars had their own unique back-painted Plexiglas cover.

Changes to the 425 were minimal over the course of 1963 and 1964—and most were line-wide rather than model specific.

In December 1963, the headstock on all models narrowed slightly to what is commonly referred to as the “vintage” shape. The following month, in January 1964, all Rickenbacker truss rod covers had “MADE IN U.S.A.” added below and parallel to the logo at Rose-Morris’s request for the UK market.

At the same time, the neck heel on the back transitioned from square to rounded—a line-wide change that accompanied the move to the smaller “vintage” headstock.

Those small details—a slightly narrower headstock, a rounded heel—were the 425’s final substantive design changes. Well, almost.

1965-1967

In 1965 Rickenbacker finally corrected the mistake they had made back at the 425’s launch—in the worst possible way.

The 425 was officially renamed the 420. Had they left it at that, it would have been confusing enough for future collectors. But Rickenbacker couldn’t resist making things even more confusing by introducing an entirely new 425—this time with a vibrato, just as the model number had always suggested.

The new 425’s vibrato—often misidentified as a “Boyd” vibrato (click to learn more)—was a simple, off-the-shelf Japanese unit.

Hidden beneath the chrome cover was a bar that served as both the string anchor and the pivot point. Pushing or pulling on the arm rotated the bar, lowering or raising the pitch. Springs returned it to its neutral position.

While simple, its performance was no worse than the Accent vibrato (click to learn more) fitted to higher-end models—and may, in fact, have been slightly better!

A number of minor changes were made to the 425 to accommodate the new vibrato. The bridgeplate became unnecessary and was eliminated. The pickguard was reshaped to make room for the vibrato unit while also helping hold the floating bridge in place. And, for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, the control layout was slightly altered.

The loss of the bridgeplate caused a problem that probably hasn’t occurred to you: where do you stamp the serial number?

We have an entire article explaining how the system worked here (click to learn more), but the short version is this: the production number was stamped onto the base of the vibrato cover, but not the year/month code. To narrow down a guitar’s age you have to use pot codes to estimate the year and data from the Rickenbacker Register to estimate the month. It’s less than ideal, but it is what it is.

The “new” 1965 420 was identical to the “old” 1964 425 in every way except the model number. But a significant change would begin phasing in around October 1965, and it’s going to look weird to you.

So yes, the big change is that the 420 and 425 transitioned from neck-through construction to a set neck with a two-piece maple body—probably in an effort to reduce manufacturing costs on this entry-level model. But that’s likely not what first caught your eye in the photo above.

The contour on the back now extended around the entire perimeter of the body, not just the lower bout as it had only a few months earlier. And that just doesn’t look right.

Apparently Rickenbacker thought so too. Well, probably not that—they likely realized they could save a little labor by going back to the old contours. Either way, by early 1967 the backs of the cutaways were no longer contoured.

Funnily, I have yet to come across a 425 with this contoured back—even among those built between late 1965 and early 1967 when most 420s had it.

It’s also worth mentioning that you will in fact find neck-through 420s and 425s during this era. The 450 was still neck-through, and sometimes they grabbed whatever body happened to be working its way through the shop. So don’t be surprised to flip a guitar over and find a through neck.

The last changes of note during the 1965-1967 period also appeared around October 1965. The bridgeplate reverted to the longer version that had been used prior to 1962, and the cutout in the pickguard was altered to fit. At the same time, the controls on the 420 shifted to match the layout that had first appeared on the new 425.

Although it would remain on the price list through 1974, the 425’s story appears to have ended in 1967 as I have found no documented examples built after then. But its legacy lives on to this day, continuing to confuse collectors trying to distinguish between the original 425, the renamed 420, and the new “with vibrato” 425.

1968-1984

The remainder of the 420’s life was, all things considered, relatively uneventful. Most changes were either part of line-wide changes, like truss rod cover tweaks (click to learn more), or simply brought the model in line with the rest of the product range. In several ways, the 420 had lagged behind the rest of the lineup.

For example, by 1968 the 420 and its private-label ES-17 variant—which remained in production through 1972—were the last Rickenbacker models still using Kluson Deluxe tuners with white plastic buttons. They may have been marginally cheaper, but they were also one more unique part the factory had to keep in inventory. In 1969 they gave way to the nickel button Klusons used on every other guitar.

And then there were the knobs. Along with the 4000 bass, the 420 was one of the last two-knob instruments in the Rickenbacker line. Starting in 1965, all four and five knob guitars had transitioned to the silver-topped knobs with their familiar “Treble Tone” and “Bass Volume” labels.

The 420, however, had carried on with the old black Kurz-Kach knobs—the silver-topped knobs bore labels that simply didn’t apply to a one-pickup guitar. In 1975 they were finally replaced with unlabeled silver-top knobs.

And finally there’s the pickup. The 420 and 450 were the last holdouts outfitted with toaster pickups after the rise of the Higain in the early 1970s. That ended in 1974 when the single toaster pickup was replaced with a button-top Higain.

But because Rickenbacker is gonna Rickenbacker, in 1975 the white plastic-button Klusons returned.

The 420 saw no further model-specific changes after 1975.

As Rickenbacker guitar sales slowly increased in the early 1980s and the backlog once again began to grow, an entry-level model whose sales had never been stellar became more of a distraction than an asset. After John Hall bought the company from his father in 1984 he ruthlessly pruned the product line. The 420 did not appear on the 1985 price list.

1999 Postscript

In 1999 John Hall announced two new special run guitars: the 425V63 and 450V63 (click to learn more). A limited ordering window was opened, and only as many guitars as were ordered during that period would be built.

Inspired by George Harrison’s 1962 425, both models were fairly faithful reproductions of the 1962 guitars—the only obvious anachronism was the longer bridgeplate. The guitars were offered in Jetglo and Burgundyglo—a finish that didn’t exist in 1962.

The guitars also marked the debut of the new scatterwound toaster pickups, the most faithful reproductions yet of the original vintage units. 84 425V63s were produced in Jetglo and 34 in Burgundyglo.

And that’s everything you could ever want to know about the 425/420—the little entry-level guitar that could.

I’ll admit it took me a while to get into this one, but here’s the thing I love about this process: researching this article connected a pair of dots that had always been right in front of me, yet I had never seen before. I had always thought of the 1963 reduction in headstock width and transition from square to rounded heels as two separate events. They’re not. They are directly related—you don’t get one without the other.

So now I have a whole bunch of Timeline articles to go update…along with adding a ton of links back to this one.

That worked pretty well until a couple months ago when I came up with an article that didn’t fit any of those headers—a piece that traced my thought process and research methodology to answer the question: did this guitar fragment come from an instrument smashed by Pete Townshend? Thus was born “Detective Stories”

But while I was working on my piece on the New Capris, another idea lodged itself into my brain. I wanted to follow it wherever it led. And so I did. And the farther I went, the more I realized that none of our categories—including Detective Stories—really fit.

So I’m introducing “Think Pieces.” Will it last? I don’t know. Does it feel appropriate? It does. So let’s get philosophical!

The very first modern Rickenbacker electric Spanish guitar was the Combo 600.

And every Rickenbacker since is also a Combo 600.

Well…not every single one, obviously, but most of them are.

Technically I could say every Rickenbacker is a Combo 600, a 4000, or a Forrest White—with a couple of oddballs thrown in. But the overwhelming majority of them are Combo 600s.

Don’t believe me? Let me prove it. In chronological order.

This is a Combo 600 (1954):

And this is a Combo 800 (1954):

But it’s really a Combo 600 with a humbucker pickup.

Here is a Combo 400 (1956):

But it’s really just a Combo 600 with a tulip top.

This is where I should probably stop for a minute and explain what I mean. Because obviously, that’s not a Combo 600.

Or is it? Ignore the upper half for a minute. Look at it from the waist down. Now compare it to a Combo 600.

Same outline.

Above the belt? Sure. That’s new.

Below the belt?

It’s a Combo 600.

Let’s continue.

Here’s an early 1957 1000:

That’s a short-scale Combo 400 with a slightly tweaked tulip top.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

Here’s a 900 (1957):

That’s a 1000 with a slightly different treble cutaway and more frets, and a 1000 is a Combo 400 with a tweaked tulip top.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

Here’s a 950 (1957):

A 950 is a 900 with two pickups. And as we’ve established above, a 900 is a 1000, which is in turn a Combo 400.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

Let’s look at something completely different from all those short-scale solidbodies. This is a Combo 850 (1957).

But it’s really just a Combo 600 with a new upper cutaway.

Here’s an early 1957 Combo 450:

But it’s really a Combo 400 with an extra pickup.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

Here’s a Combo 450 from later in 1957.

The upper cutaway was reshaped to improve access to the upper frets. But you already know that underneath it all it’s really a Combo 400.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

1958 saw the introduction of the Capri line of semi-hollowbody guitars. The first of these were the short-bodied guitars, like this 325 Capri:

The 325 is really a short-scale, semi-hollowbody Combo 850 without a German carve.

And the Combo 850 is really a Combo 600.

Here’s a prototype 325 from 1958:

This prototype 325 is really a stretched-out production 325, which is really a Combo 850.

And a Combo 850 is really a Combo 600.

Here’s a full-size Capri from 1958, a 330 Capri:

At this point you’re probably going to say there’s no way this is a Combo 600. But I’d argue you’re wrong.

Because what is the Capri other than a widened version of that long-body 325 prototype?

And that long-body 325 prototype is really a stretched-out version of the short-scale Capri, which is itself really a Combo 850.

And a Combo 850 is really a Combo 600.

1958 also saw the introduction of the new cresting-wave 425 and 450:

Looks brand new, right?

Nope. It’s really the late 1957 Combo 450 with the upper “tulip” horn scooped out to form the cresting wave. And a Combo 450 is really a Combo 400.

And a Combo 400 is really a Combo 600.

There was a last-minute addition to the 1958 line, the full-size F-body jazz guitars like this 330F:

The F-body guitars are not really a Combo 600.

1961 saw the appearance of the New Capris, like this 1961 375 New Capri:

And what is a New Capri but a Capri with bigger horns and a lower, more pinched waist? And if we walk it back, a Capri is really a Combo 850.

And, of course, a Combo 850 is really a Combo 600.

In 1962, we saw the first 625:

The 625 was really a 450 with deluxe appointments (click to learn more) and a different deck height (click to learn more). And you see where this is going, right?

It’s really a Combo 600.

In 1963, the New Capris morphed into the modern 330 and 360OS, like this 1963 365OS:

The modern 330 and 360OS are really just slightly smaller New Capris with white plastics, and we’ve already traced those step by step back to the Combo 850.

Which is really a Combo 600.

1964 saw the introduction of the New Style 360:

The New Style 360 is really a 360OS with rounded horns and a rounded-over top. Which…you know.

It’s really a Combo 600.

And then there’s the 1967 6000 Bantar:

I’ll give you that one. The Bantar is the anti-Combo 600.

And maybe—maybe—I’m stretching it a bit with the 1968 6006 and 6005 Banjoline twins:

But really, squint and what do you see? A slightly misshapen New Style 360 with a German carve. And what, really, is a New Style 360?

It’s a Combo 600.

But there’s no stretching it with the 1969 381:

That’s a big 360OS with a German carve. And there’s no question what a 360OS is.

It’s a Combo 600.

1970s new models were almost entirely 4000s and Forrest Whites. I’m not saying the fact that they’re not Combo 600s is the reason they’re not still around, but I’m not not saying that either.

We did get the doubleneck 362 in 1974:

The 362 is a double-wide flat-top New Style 360. There are a ton of steps in this one’s lineage: New Style 360/360OS/New Capri/Capri/long-body 325 Capri prototype/325 Capri/Combo 850.

And that makes it a Combo 600.

1983 brought us the 350:

This one’s easy. The 350 is a full-size 325 Capri, which is a Combo 850.

And that’s a Combo 600.

But we’ve now more or less covered all the branches of the family tree, right? Well, John Hall launched a couple of modern models during his time, like the 650 in 1992:

But of course, the 650 is a 24-fret 450, which is a Combo 450 which is a Combo 400 which is a…

Combo 600.

And last but not least is what is probably the most underappreciated model of the John Hall era, 1995’s 380L Laguna:

I don’t even need to say it, do I? You know what it is.

Ok, maybe I’m reaching a bit with this whole “everything is a Combo 600” shtick. But there’s a real kernel of truth in there: all of these guitars can directly trace their design lineage back to the Combo 600, a mostly forgotten model from the very start of the modern Rickenbacker story.

When I wrote my article on the Combo 600 and 800 (click to read), my basic thesis was that those guitars were basically placeholders while F.C. Hall figured out how to run a guitar company. And I stand by that.

But it turns out they’re a lot more important than I gave them credit for.

How could they not be when everything’s a Combo 600?

Yet there very clearly are guitars that aren’t the old-style Capris but aren’t quite modern 330s/360s either. Collectors needed some way to talk about them without explaining all of that every time, and so the term “New Capri” was born.

So let’s talk about the New Capris. And to do that, we have to start with the plain old Capris—the granddaddies of the modern semi-hollowbody Rickenbackers.

We’ve discussed here many times the astounding creative output of Roger Rossmeisl (click to learn more) between 1957 and 1958, but it’s worth a quick refresher on the flurry of activity that resulted in the Capri guitars. I promise we’ll go quick.

The 1954 Combo 600 & 800 (click to learn more)—which Rossmeisl didn’t actually design himself—was the starting point. In early 1957, Rossmeisl took that silhouette, reshaped the upper cutaway, and exaggerated the German carve (click to learn more) to create the Combo 850.

That shape lives on today in the 325C64 (click to learn more) and 350 (click to learn more). But the Combo 850 was a solidbody, unlike its semi-hollow descendants. In early 1958, Rossmeisl took the Combo 850 shape and carved out the back to create the “Polynesian” prototype (click to learn more)—the first modern Rickenbacker semi-hollowbodied guitar.

This would quickly be simplified—losing the time-consuming German carved top—to create the foundation for the short-scale Capri models.

Rossmeisl would then take the small body and stretch it slightly.

And with a couple of final tweaks—widening the body and adding a slash soundhole—the 24.75-inch-scale Capri was born.

You can certainly see the family resemblance with the modern 330 (click to learn more), but the design still wasn’t quite all the way there yet.

Still, it was enough to build a brand identity around. The “Capri Series, Thin Body” launched in 1958 with twelve models: four in “3/4 scale” and eight “full size.” Rickenbacker, as we know it today, had arrived.

It took a year or so for the specs to finalize—three-piece maple bodies, 6 1/8 inch slash soundholes, four knob/one switch controls, split-level pickguard, trapeze tailpiece or Kauffman Vibrola (click to learn more)—but once they did, the template was set. That’s not to say the Capri models didn’t see some changes over the years: the backs changed from plywood to solid maple, and the Kauffman was replaced by the Accent vibrato (click to learn more). But the basic shape and electronics remained.

To easily differentiate these early guitars—including the short-scale models—we refer to the model number, followed by Capri. So the guitar above is a 335 Capri. Use that exact term, and everyone knows exactly which 335 you’re talking about.

About that name: Capri. When every single source gives you the same explanation, it’s either really right or really wrong. I could tell you the guitars were named to evoke the glamorous Italian island of the same name, or the ancient Greek word “kapros,” meaning wild goat, which may be where the island got its name. But every single source says it was named after the Hall family cat, Capri. I expect that’s right.

By 1960 “Capri” had disappeared from the price list, with the models being referred to simply as “310-375 Series, Thin Body.” Why did the Capri name get dropped? We’ll likely never know. But in collector-speak, that original silhouette would remain a Capri forever.

After the 1958 product line was finalized, with no more suggestions or requests coming from F.C. Hall, Roger Rossmeisl found himself without much to do except build guitars. He played around with some acoustic models which never made it into production. Bored, with friction building with shop manager Ward Deaton, Rossmeisl probably knew his time with Rickenbacker was coming to an end. But he had one last masterpiece up his sleeve.

In mid-1961, Rossmeisl took the existing Capri body and enlarged the horns, lowered and pinched the waist slightly, and reduced the body depth from 2 inches to 1 1/2 inches. The New Capri had arrived.

Now you may look at that shape and say, “that looks like a regular old 330 or a 360OS.” You’re absolutely right—it does. Mostly. So what sets it apart and makes it a New Capri?

Less than you might think. It’s the plastic bits—gold plastics (click to learn more) and cooker knobs carried over from the original Capris. That’s it.

Almost. The other difference isn’t easy to spot: the lower body bout on the New Capri is 15 1/4 inches wide, compared to the modern guitar’s 15 inches.

The New Capris did introduce one additional new feature designed to address one of the biggest complaints players had about their predecessors—imbalanced pickups.

Until 1984 or so, most two or three-pickup Rickenbackers featured a .0047µF high-pass filter—referred to today as the “vintage tone circuit” (click to learn more)—on the bridge pickup that significantly reduced the pickup’s bass response and output.

The New Capri introduced the fifth, “blend” knob (click to learn more) to allow the pickups’ levels to be equalized.

Not a lot of New Capris exist. They didn’t appear until mid-1961, 1962 production was relatively low thanks to the factory’s move from Los Angeles to Santa Ana early in the year, and by the end of 1963 the New Capri was no more.

What killed the New Capri? I won’t say it was this particular guitar, but it’s as good a “time of death” as any.

Rickenbacker had introduced white pickguards on solidbody models as early as 1958, and by 1961 all solidbodies were so equipped—although they still featured gold truss rod covers. Those would be replaced by white in 1962, leaving only the New Capris still wearing gold plastics.

So by 1963 gold plastics’ days were numbered—as was the slightly larger body. Harrison’s guitar, built in December, wasn’t the very first semi-hollowbodied guitar to get the same white plastics, black Kurz-Kach knobs and slightly smaller body, but it was a very early example.

There are no short-scale New Capris for two good reasons. First, the original short-scale Capri was not redesigned along with the full-scale models. And that’s because—reason number two—the short-scale Capris had been a flop. None were produced after 1960. If a certain guitarist hadn’t bought the very same V81 325 we saw F.C. Hall holding earlier in a Hamburg music store in 1960, Rickenbacker may very well have never built another semi-hollowbodied short-scale guitar.

So we have guitars made for a relatively short period, with a unique set of features and no official factory designation. That’s just begging for a collector classification. Ergo, the New Capri: no longer the old Capri, but not quite the modern guitar either.

After 1963 the 330 is just a 330, and the 360 is an Old Style/OS (click to learn more) or a New Style/NS—or, when the distinction doesn’t matter, just a plain old 360. But that’s a whole separate story.

And that’s how the New Capri became Rickenbacker’s own Schrödinger’s cat—simultaneously existing and not existing at the same time. Which only seems fair given the Capri’s original namesake.

They built a lot of Rose Morris 1996s in between, though, with sizeable special runs in 2006, 2008, and 2014. So it’s almost understandable what happened…but it’s still unfortunate.

Okay, this is going to be super-inside baseball, but it’s also one of those “once you see it you can’t unsee it” things. There were two different f-holes used on the 1996 over its lifetime. Here’s the first one, the so-called “2 o’clock” f-hole:

That’s what the f-hole looked like on the short-scale Capris from their launch in 1958 up through June of 1964—including the first several production batches of the Rose Morris 1996.

We refer to it as a “2 o’clock” f-hole because…well, imagine a clock face. Where is the upper end of the f-hole pointing? About 2 o’clock.

In July 1964 they changed it to “1 o’clock” to match all the other Rose Morris models.

Only there was more to the change than just slightly rotating the template. It was, in fact, a completely different template. Let’s inspect both of those f-holes closely.

At the top we have our 2 o’clock hole; at the bottom is our 1 o’clock. Look at the “points” in the middle of the f-hole. They’re in completely different places!

Let’s look at them side by side.

If you look at our 2 o’clock 1996 on the left, you’ll see that those two “points” are more or less level when the guitar is held upright. If you do the same with the 1 o’clock 1996 on the right, the “point” on the outside is a little bit higher than the one on the inside. This is how the f-hole appears on all Rose Morris guitars with a 1 o’clock f-hole.

But, just for fun, let’s take our 2 o’clock f-hole and rotate it to 1 o’clock.

Burn that image into your memory. It’s going to be important in a minute.

Okay, that was a lot of setup. Let’s move into the payoff.

Remember, Rickenbacker made zero production guitars with a 1 o’clock f-hole between 2002 and 2014. But in 2012 they built two special runs—one for the UK market, and one for the US market, and they wanted to do something different. Something that wasn’t a Rose Morris reproduction, but had a Rose Morris f-hole. Here’s the UK offer (click to learn more):

And here’s the US offer:

I mean, both of them have so much going on you might not notice it at first, but look at those f-holes.

Somebody grabbed the wrong template.

Here’s where it gets even more embarrassing. A few months earlier they built a bound Rose Morris 1998 and a 1993—one of less than ten 1993 reproductions built since the 1960s originals—for Tom Petty to take out on the road. Did they use the right template on those?

They did not. Whoever built those guitars appears to have introduced the wrong template—and nobody noticed.

At least one more guitar turned up with the wrong template—a 2013 Sea Green 330S/12 sold through the Rickenbacker Boutique. And before you ask, no, it wasn’t a leftover/overrun from the 2012 special runs—those had 21 frets and this one had 24.

When the collector community spotted the anomaly, they named it “the upside-down f-hole” because the “points” appear backwards from the correct 1 o’clock template. The highest “point” is on the outside on the correct template and the inside on the wrong template. But “upside-down” isn’t what’s really going on here. It’s just the wrong template.

Somebody at the factory finally noticed by 2014. That year, a special run of 24-fret 330-Fs was built for UK distributor Rosetti with the correct 1 o’clock template. From that point on, it’s all been good.

If you didn’t already know about this little oopsie, you probably would have never noticed if I hadn’t pointed it out. But now that I have, I promise you can’t unsee it!

Well, let’s not be so hasty. Dig into it and it won’t take you long to find sources that say it stands for “Special Pickup Configuration” or “Special Paint Color.” And for the very first applications that may be true—but that certainly isn’t what it means today.

Today it just means Special—although it’s a very specific kind of “Special.” So let’s run through the history to see how we got there—and what came before.

Rickenbacker first began adding an “S” for “special” to model numbers internally with the Rose Morris guitars in 1964, both for prototypes—like the 360S/12—and production guitars. A Rose Morris 1997, for example, appeared in factory records as a 335S: it was essentially a 335 with a special f-hole. When the same guitar was sold domestically, it carried the Model 335S designation to differentiate it from a standard 335.

That’s where the 4001S came from. The 4001 had binding and triangle inlays; the 1999 built for Rose Morris had neither—it was “special.”

That’s why we refer to Paul McCartney’s famous left-handed 1964 Rickenbacker bass (click to learn more) as a 4001S, not a 1999—it was made for him, not for Rose Morris.

And while none of the other Rose Morris models made it into the domestic lineup, the 4001S did. In fact, the domestic version went on to outlive the Rose Morris version by almost twenty years. The “S” even outlived the 4001 itself—still in use on its 4003S successor.

Despite living on to this day, the “S” never appeared on any non-Rose Morris-derived guitar. So how were “special” guitars internally coded prior to the introduction of the “SPC” designation?

I honestly don’t know. I don’t have access to the factory records that might answer that question, but the fact that nobody else seems to know either feels telling.

To be fair, up until the John Hall era, factory-built “special” guitars weren’t really a thing. There were a handful of oddball custom orders in the 1970s and early 1980s, but they were few and far between. Maybe there wasn’t a special code at all.

So when did SPC first show up? The first guitar I can find this designation attached to is, fittingly, the 1987 Rose Morris reissue 1997SPC.

Now you’re going to count the pickups and say, “three pickups means it’s a 1998, not a 1997.” And technically, you’re correct.

Let’s jump ahead a couple years and take a look at the 1989 price list—particularly the options list—to shed a little light on the matter.

Let’s home in on the last three items, starting at the bottom and working our way up.

“Custom pick-up charge” meant “replace the stock Higains with toasters,” and guitars so equipped were given a “VP” suffix for “Vintage Pickup” at the factory.

“Vintage vibrato” meant “add an Accent vibrato,” and guitars so equipped were designated “VB” for “Vibrato.”

And then there’s “Guitars which can be special ordered with three pickups.” At this point in Rickenbacker history, there were no production three-pickup 340s, 370s, or 1998s. They simply didn’t exist.

But you could order a 330, 360, or 1997 and tick that box to add a third pickup. That didn’t make it a 340, 370, or 1998, though. It made it a 330SPC, 360SPC, or…1997SPC.

I cannot find any factory literature that definitively tells us “SPC” stands for “Special Pickup Configuration.” Maybe that document is out there somewhere. Or maybe, over the years, people simply found a tidy way to make the letters fit the VB and VP pattern.

And while the 1997SPC appeared first, in 1987, 360SPCs and 330SPCs followed shortly thereafter. But while the SPC suffix appeared on internal documents and warranty cards for these guitars, it never appeared in catalogs or price lists. And when it did first appear on a price list, in 1989, it was for something completely different.

The 4003S/SPC Blackstar didn’t have a special pickup configuration—it had standard 4003 Higains. It did, however, have a distinctive body-colored painted fingerboard. This is where “Special Paint Code” enters the chat.

People want things to make sense. We invent patterns where none exist to give us that sense of order. I’m not saying that’s what happened here…but I’m not saying it isn’t either. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Or sometimes SPC just means “Special.”

The “add a third pickup” option disappeared in 1992, and the 370 and 370/12 returned to the price list the same year. The 1997SPC officially joined the price list the following year. If you wanted a 340? Too bad.

From 1993 to about 2001, the 1997SPC was really the only place you saw the SPC suffix apart from a handful of special runs, like the 1994 Norman’s Rare Guitars 1993SPC (click to learn more). But that changed in 2003, when the “modern” meaning of SPC began to take shape.

So what is that modern meaning? That’s a great question. It means special—that much we can all agree on—but beyond that? The rules for when it applies seem…flexible—yet still oddly specific.

There’s one thing it definitely doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean only a special color. A special color can be part of what earns a guitar the SPC designation, but it has to be paired with at least one other special feature.

Here’s the first “modern” SPC model I can find—a 2003 4003SPC produced for the Japanese market:

So what makes this guitar an SPC? It’s not the color—it’s a “boring old” Jetglo. It’s the checkered binding and toaster neck pickup.

A production 4003 from 2003 had plain white binding and a Higain in the neck position. And that seems to be the key to what makes a guitar an SPC: something beyond color that sets it apart from the production model.

But not, at this point, “just” pickups or a vibrato. Those could still be ordered as options on most guitars—and either could also be easily added after the fact. Checkered binding couldn’t be—it had to come from the factory that way. So for this particular bass, it’s the combination of the binding and the pickup—both different from the production 4003—that earns the SPC designation.

And that brings us to an important distinction. You only find the SPC suffix on guitars that were part of a special run (click to learn more) or were built “just for fun” by the factory.

An individual customer orders a 360 with toasters? 360VP.

An individual customer orders a 360 with an Accent? 360VB.

A dealer orders a batch of 360s featuring some nonstandard combination of specs? The factory builds something weird just because they can? Now we’re in SPC territory.

SPC isn’t really describing any particular feature. It’s telling you that the guitar itself is a factory-created special variant—and remember that color alone isn’t enough. The unusual features are what make it special, but they aren’t necessarily what the letters themselves encode.

This 2014 Ruby 620 has normal pickups and normal binding, but was part of a special run for Japan that featured a mirrored pickguard and truss rod cover. It’s a 620SPC.

This 2025 1996 built for the Rickenbacker Boutique has a crazy Coralglo Pearl finish. Does that make it an SPC? Not by itself, no. But it also has Hofner teacup knobs, which are standard on zero Rickenbacker models. That makes it a 1996SPC.

Lately, just to make things even more confusing, Rickenbacker has begun adding to their special guitar designations.

That’s a weird one, right? We have two bridge pickups and a teardrop pickguard in the style of the 4003AC Al Cisneros Signature Limited Edition (click to learn more), plus a Montezuma Brown finish with checkered binding. 4003SPC for sure, right?

Partially. That’s a 4003 CB—for Checkered Binding—SPC, because why not?

Are there guitars that break the rules—guitars you’d expect to be designated SPC that aren’t, or vice versa? Sure. Rickenbacker’s gonna Rickenbacker. But that’s easier to reconcile when you start thinking of SPC as a classification, not a specification.

And once you do that, the modern meaning of SPC becomes clear: here’s a weird thing we made on purpose. The end.

I try to make every article as complete and accurate as I can before I hit publish, but I also want this site to be the most reliable Rickenbacker resource out there. That means treating it as a work in progress rather than a finished product.

While recently refreshing my articles on special runs (you can read Part One here and Part Two here), I came up with this turn of phrase that perfectly sets up today’s story:

The frustrating thing about special runs is that you almost have to know they exist in order to know they exist. They don’t show up in catalogs, don’t appear in price lists, and often survive only as rumors until enough examples emerge to prove they were actually a thing.

I’ve tried my best to capture them all. I keep a running list of guitars that I think belong to special runs but need more evidence before I’m willing to call them one. But sometimes I discover a special run that has been hiding in plain sight all along.

For example, I’d known for years that there was a 2009 run of Montezuma Brown 310C64s built for the Japanese market. In fact, it’s been listed in my special runs article almost since the site launched. But today I discovered there were actually two 2009 Japanese-market 310 special runs. Montezuma Brown, as already established, and Jetglo.

The 310 was an unusual choice for a special run. I’m not saying Rickenbacker built almost as many 310s in 2009 as they had in the previous fifty years…but that’s probably not too far off the mark.

The short-scale Capris introduced in 1958 came in four variants: the two-pickup 310, the two-pickup 315 with vibrato, the three-pickup 320, and the three-pickup 325 with vibrato. Obviously, thanks to John Lennon’s adoption of the 325, that model is by far the most famous today.

The two-pickup versions never really caught on—almost certainly because Lennon made the 325 the iconic short-scale Rickenbacker—and today both the 310 and 315 are quite rare.

But then again, that’s the whole point of a special run. They’re supposed to be a little unusual. And few production Rickenbackers are more unusual than the humble 310.

So where does the C64 designation come from? Is there a specific 1964 guitar this model is attempting to recreate? Not really. Instead, it’s simply a tip of the hat to the donor 325C64 (click to learn more) platform on which this guitar was based—a highly (but not completely) accurate reproduction of John Lennon’s second 325, built for him in 1964.

In fact, add a third pickup and replace the “R” Tailpiece (click to learn more) with an Accent vibrato (click to learn more) to this guitar, and you’ve essentially got a 325C64.

Well…almost. The 310C64 does have one unique feature of its own. Instead of the Kluson Deluxe-style tuners fitted to Lennon’s 1964 325, it wears reproductions of the Grover Sta-Tite tuners (click to learn more) found on his original 1958 325.

And here’s a quick aside: there have been three “vintage” series of Rickenbacker reissues: the B-Series (click to learn more), V-Series, and the C-Series. We know the “B” stands for “Beatles” and the “V” for “Vintage,” but what about the “C”?

Ask Google’s AI and it will confidently tell you it stands for either “Copy” or “Circa.” While I’ve never seen an official press release or a quote from John Hall explicitly answering the question, the headline on the C-Series overview page at rickenbacker.com reads “Classic Rickenbackers.” That seemed like a likely answer to me—but John Hall has since weighed in in the comments below to let us know we still don’t have it right!

To be fair, I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate to call this a “separate” special run from the Montezuma Brown 310C64s—they were all built in September 2009, so it’s probably more accurate to say it was a single special run offered in two colors. Either way, the Jetglo guitars were news to me.

24 Jetglo and 36 Montezuma Brown examples were produced in commemoration of Japanese dealer Shinseido’s 60th anniversary. There are a number of examples of both colors listed on the register…I simply have no idea how I kept missing the Jetglo guitars. But I sure did.

As I’ve said, I have a number of potential special runs out there that I’ll keep chasing down. But I seriously doubt any of them will be as easy to validate as this one was. And yes, I’ve already added the 2009 Jetglo 310C64 to my post on special runs.

Want to learn about another really unusual special run? This 2011 Pearl White 1997 is really…something!

“So what?” you say. “It’s just a bunch of boring old 330s.”

But look again and count the tuners. Count the strings. Those aren’t guitars. They’re basses.

So yes, these things are indeed exactly what they look like: a 330 bass. 330 body, 330 24.75 inch neck, but only four strings. Most “short-scale” basses clock in around 30 inches—including the Rickenbacker 3000 (click to learn more) and 4030 (click to learn more)—just to give you an idea of how unusual these things are. I’ve looked hard for a shorter-scale production bass—and, yes, I’m ruling out the 18 inch Guild Ashbory bass because it had weird silicone strings—and I can’t find one.

The components almost all come from the Rickenbacker parts bin: 330 (click to learn more) husk and pickguard/control panel, four-string bridge and “R” tailpiece (click to learn more) from the 4005V (click to learn more), and the “hot” toaster pickups that have appeared on a number of special runs and one-offs. The only components that I believe are unique are the Schaller M4-style tuners—probably made by Gotoh—which haven’t been regularly used since the 4004 (click to learn more) was discontinued in 2017.

To be fair, there’s no way the standard Rickenbacker Kluson-style Gotohs would have fit on the back of that narrow paddle-shaped headstock.

How do you even find strings for a 24.75 inch scale bass, you may ask? Luckily the almost five inches of “dead space” between the bridge and the “R” tailpiece allows the use of standard short-scale strings—La Bella Low-Tension Flats in this case.

Five each in Fireglo, Mapleglo, Jetglo, and Walnut were produced and offered directly through the Rickenbacker.com boutique. The price was a reasonable $2,149—the same as a new donor 330. They sold out in two days, but there have been hints that more may follow.

Now there are two interesting things about what I just said that I want to highlight. First, as we’ve often seen with Boutique and dealer special run guitars, a number of these immediately showed up for resale on Reverb. However, thanks to the hints of more to come—which were dropped only after the models sold out—prices ended up being slashed, with at least a couple selling for not much more than the original Boutique price.

But the second item is more interesting. I’ve been reluctant to point out what appears to be a new business strategy, but I believe I have enough data points now that it bears mentioning.

Ben Hall has for quite some time used the Boutique to indulge in flights of fancy—a Coralglo doubleneck 620, a 350-based bass, and any number of unusual color/pickup combinations. All interesting in their own way, but for the most part, one-offs.

Since the late 1980s, Rickenbacker has reserved a portion of its capacity for some form of “special production”. From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s it was the Signature Limited Edition models (click to learn more); those were replaced by the Color of the Year models (click to learn more) in the early 2000s, and since the mid-2000s it’s been dealer special runs (click to learn more).

This year—2026—Rickenbacker has started doing something new: producing its own special runs and selling them directly to consumers via the Rickenbacker Boutique.

Other manufacturers like Gibson have been doing this for a while, and while dealers certainly can’t be happy about being cut out of the transaction, they are at least used to the concept. And as long as Rickenbacker sticks to special runs and not mainline product, it’s probably low risk—especially if they continue to offer important dealers their own special runs as well.

From Rickenbacker’s standpoint it’s about as close to free money as you can get: dealer price is usually roughly half of MSRP, and now Rickenbacker gets to sell at list price and keep the difference for itself. So why not do it?

So far this year we have seen Boutique-exclusive special runs of the Noir 4003 (click to learn more), a Midnight Purple 1993Plus, and now these 3030s. Add to that the planned fifteen 4002SPCs that have begun trickling out—four thus far—and the Boutique is looking less like an outlet for boredom-killers and more like a potential key piece of the overall sales strategy. Especially if—like with the 3030 and 4002SPC—the Boutique focuses on selling not just instruments with special features but models you literally cannot get anywhere else.

Is this a new strategy? A proof of concept? Or maybe it’s just a coincidence that I’m reading too much into. Time will tell. But if more 3030s show up—and only in the Boutique—I may just be onto something.

As regards the 3030 itself? There have been a handful of other 24.75 inch scale basses made over the years. The fact that you probably can’t name any of them should tell you a lot. I’ve spoken to people who have played the 3030, and they say the basses sound nice and thumpy, while the strings don’t feel “loose” like I suspected they might—that gap between the bridge and the tailpiece means the total length of string under tension is more or less the same as on a “normal” 30 inch short-scale bass.

It’s certainly a scale guitarists will be comfortable with. Is there a large enough market to put this bass into the line full-time? I seriously doubt it. But as an easy-enough-to-build special run for the Boutique every so often? That makes perfect sense. I mean, they did sell twenty of them in less than two days…

(And yes, I have an article coming on the 4002SPCs. I just haven’t gotten to it yet!)