Take the question: “What was the first left-handed Rickenbacker?” Here’s Google’s confident response:

“The earliest known left-handed Rickenbacker instrument is the 1964 Rickenbacker 4001S gifted to Paul McCartney.”

Except that’s not true. McCartney’s 1964 4001S (click to learn more) isn’t even the second lefty Rickenbacker. It’s—at best—the fourth.

To be fair, that was the conventional wisdom until about 15 years ago, when older lefties began surfacing. Luckily, Google’s AI model seems to trust me, so let’s see if we can help them set the record straight as we take a look at the history of left-handed Rickenbackers.

While today’s left-handed Rickenbacker fans may justifiably complain about the paucity of lefties—it doesn’t appear that Rickenbacker has made any since 2022—left-handed guitars have spent much of their history as special-order guitars.

But there’s special order and special order. By the first I mean “tick an option box on the order form”, and by the second I mean “pick up the phone and convince somebody at the factory to actually build it”.

For Rickenbacker, “tick the box” wasn’t an option until 1973. Meaning that the earliest left-handed Rickenbackers weren’t the result of a standardized left-handed program. Those early guitars required the factory to figure out how to build a left-handed version in response to a specific customer request. And it didn’t happen often.

Around ten to fifteen percent of the world’s population is left handed. And for most of the guitar’s history, lefties have had limited options. They could learn to play right handed; flip the guitar over and play it “backwards;” or flip it over and restring it—which also required replacing or adjusting the nut and bridge. As long as guitars were symmetrical, those options were mostly good enough.

But in 1939, Gibson introduced the first modern cutaways on the Super 400 Premier and L-5 Premier, giving guitarists unprecedented access to the higher frets. Suddenly, just flipping the guitar over wasn’t going to cut it anymore for lefties.

Matters only got worse with the rise of the electric guitar. Now lefties had volume and tone controls directly under their forearm, pickup selector switches in awkward places, and asymmetrical bodies that simply didn’t work upside down. What had already been less than ideal was becoming increasingly impractical.

If you had the means, you could commission a custom-built instrument—assuming you could find a builder willing to do so. When it came to the hollowbodied guitars of the day, creating a left-hand version wasn’t as simple as flipping the body upside down. New tooling and jigs often had to be made, and for a market representing just ten to fifteen percent of the population—most of whom were already making do with right-handed guitars—the payoff didn’t seem worth the expense.

Solidbodied electric guitars changed that equation, though. Suddenly manufacturers really could just flip the body upside down.

The first lefty Telecaster dates to 1951, only a year after the model’s debut. Multiple left-handed Les Pauls were built in 1952, the same year the model launched. To be fair, these weren’t cataloged models or standard options—they were still custom orders. But in both cases Fender and Gibson basically said “sure, no sweat.”

Which brings us back to Rickenbacker. It took the company a while to climb aboard the lefty train. Whether that’s because nobody ever asked or because the answer was simply “no” when they did, we’ll probably never know. But several years passed between the 1954 launch of the Combo 600 & 800 (click to learn more), Rickenbacker’s first modern electric guitars, and the company’s first left handed instrument. And no, it wasn’t McCartney’s 4001S.

So if not McCartney’s bass, what then was the first left-handed Rickenbacker? As of today, the honor belongs to this Jetglo 450 (click to learn more), dating to January 1961:

And it makes perfect sense that a 450 would be first. Building a left-handed 450 was relatively straightforward—all Rickenbacker really had to do was glue the body wings on backwards. They didn’t even bother modifying the headstock or the truss rod cover on this first lefty. Unlike the cover on McCartney’s later 4001S, the standard truss rod cover is simply mounted as-is, leaving the logo upside down on the finished guitar. The headstock wasn’t modified either.

The second known left-handed Rickenbacker was also a 450, this one dating to 1963. This guitar was later modified to accommodate a real Boyd Vibrato (click here to learn more)—the Japanese unit on mid-1960s 425s is often misidentified as a Boyd, but it is not.

For this guitar, however they did make the effort to reverse the logo on the truss rod cover (click to learn more)—but not the cover itself or the headstock. Baby steps.

This truss rod cover, however, differs from the “final design” that would appear the following year. On right-handed guitars, the arch of the logo mirrors the shape of the truss rod cover. Here, the logo was merely inverted, so the arch bends the wrong way. It gives the whole thing a slightly unbalanced appearance.

At least one more left-handed 450 was produced before the January 1964 4001S that Google insists was Rickenbacker’s first left-handed instrument.

Funnily enough, unlike the 450s that preceded it, the first left-handed 4001 wasn’t built to satisfy a specific customer’s request. Instead, it was intended as a gift for a man who had suddenly become the world’s most famous bass player and just so happened to be left-handed.

Even more funnily, McCartney took a pass on the bass when it was presented to him in New York in February 1964. Given another opportunity a year later, however, he changed his mind—and the rest is history.

You’ll notice that, on this reproduction of that guitar above, the arch of the logo has been reworked to follow the contour of the truss rod cover. This would become the standard left-handed truss rod cover design—and it remained so until a true left-handed version was finally introduced—much later than you might expect.

So by early 1964 we can document left-handed versions of just two models—the 450 and the 4001. What came next?

The next model—and the first documented semi-hollowbodied left-handed Rickenbacker—was based on the “New Style” round-top 360 (click to learn more), with the earliest known example dating to 1966.

Note how the Accent Vibrato (click to learn more) on this guitar has attachment points for the vibrato arm on both sides. This may well be a prototype unit, as later examples use dedicated left-handed versions.

That, however, was a relatively minor change to make. Flipping the “R” tailpiece (click to learn more) around, on the other hand, would be a much more significant undertaking. So Rickenbacker simply didn’t bother, condemning left-handed players to upside-down “R” tailpieces for perpetuity.

Since the 4005 bass (click to learn more) shared the same design language as the New Style 360, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a left-handed 4005 soon followed. In fact, the record today even includes an extremely rare 6-string 4005/6.

Now I need to take a moment to address some other guitars you may encounter from this era. I have seen purportedly left-handed 330s and 1996s, but I do not believe these to be factory-built lefties for a couple of reasons.

First, neither of these guitars is a “true” left-handed instrument. Instead, they appear to be right-handed guitars that have had their controls and soundholes reoriented.

Secondly, like the guitar above, the examples I have seen have been refinished in Jetglo, which would conveniently hide any repair work that might reveal an original control cavity.

And in the case of this particular guitar, it has a Rose Morris serial number, yet there is no evidence that any left-handed guitars were produced for Rose Morris. Moreover, with the pickguard removed you can see traces of the original right-handed f-hole.

Is it possible that guitars like this left the factory this way? Sure. Do I think it’s likely? No.

The only other model that I feel confident Rickenbacker developed a left-handed version of in the 1960s is the 360OS (click to learn more), with the first example I have seen dating to 1969.

While it is certainly possible that other models got the left-hand treatment during this period, no documented examples currently appear in the register. As with so much early Rickenbacker history, the absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence—but for now, the list appears to be surprisingly short.

Remember, up to this point left-handed models didn’t even appear as an option in catalogs or price lists. That changed with the 1973 price list.

Now, all bets were off. Any model could be ordered left-handed for a $50 upcharge. And the market went crazy…for left-handed 4001s (click to learn more). I mean, nobody was buying right-handed Rickenbacker guitars in the early 1970s, so it only stands to reason nobody was buying left-handed ones either.

It may be hard to understand in today’s world of “order anything online and have it arrive in two business days”, but for most of their history left-handed models—from all manufacturers—have truly been special orders.

Until fairly recently, there were no massive online retailers, no niche dealers with a national reach thanks to the internet, and not even particularly large national chains. There were local—and perhaps regional—music stores that served their immediate markets and only hung on the wall things they were reasonably certain would sell quickly. And left-handed guitars did not fit that criterion. The idea that you could simply walk into a store and buy a left-handed guitar off the rack was, for all practical purposes, a fantasy.

So while Rickenbacker may have been late to the game, their approach was really no different from anybody else’s. Order it, and we’ll make it. Period.

Except…

There are a number of models that don’t appear to have ever been built in left-handed form—including some, like the 480 (click to learn more) and 481 (click to learn more) where you would absolutely expect there to have been demand. In fact, the only other two models I can confidently say saw left-handed production in the 1970s are the 330 (click to learn more) and 3001 bass (click to learn more).

So why no others? I suspect it has to do with Rickenbacker’s manufacturing process. Not only did somebody need to request a left-handed guitar, enough somebodies had to ask for one to make it worth the effort on Rickenbacker’s part. And given the company’s anemic guitar sales during much of the 1970s, reaching that critical mass was probably a challenge.

The early 1980s saw left-handed versions of the 320 and 620 (click to learn more) finally appear, and with those two models the entire core model lineup was at last accounted for. Left-handed production remained low—less than five percent if register entries are any guide. That figure, however, is actually pretty typical and not out of line with most other major manufacturers.

The late 1980s to the early-2000s was about as close to a golden age for left-handed Rickenbacker fans as we’re ever likely to see. Modern instruments like the 4004 bass (click to learn more) and the 650 were available in left-handed form, as were most Signature Limited Edition models (click to learn more) and V and C Series instruments. Lead times were long—years in some cases—but if you wanted a left-handed Rickenbacker you could order pretty much anything in the catalog and, eventually, it would arrive.

And during this “golden era”—1989, to be specific—Rickenbacker finally gave left-handed models proper left-handed headstocks and truss rod covers. For the first time, the entire guitar was truly a mirror image of its right-handed counterpart.

Well, almost.

The “R” tailpiece stubbornly remained upside down.

The years from 2005 to 2007 saw a significant reduction in left-hand guitar production. And when production returned to more normal levels in 2008, it appeared to come with a new strategy: a renewed focus on core models only.

This shift was hinted at in the 2009 price list. While the special order section still offered “Left-hand, available all models” for a $200 upcharge, it came with a caveat: “orders for this option subject to acceptance”.

By all appearances, if your requested model wasn’t a 330, 360, or 4003 the answer was almost certainly going to be “no”.

The language hasn’t changed since, and neither—it appears—has the policy. Funnily enough, the W-Series (click to learn more) 330W and 4003W launched in 2014 appear to qualify as “core models”, but the 360W doesn’t. None have ever been made.

In late 2022 Rickenbacker announced they would be pausing left-hand production for a while to catch up a bit on the right-hand backlog. As of mid-2026, that pause is still ongoing.

On the one hand, there are instruments on the used market. If someone really wants a lefty, they’re certainly out there. On the other hand, effectively abandoning the market for almost four years—and counting—seems like a…questionable decision.

Perhaps that’s fitting. The history of left-handed Rickenbackers has always been a little strange. They’ve survived upside-down logos, improvised solutions, decades of special orders, and years-long lead times before.

In other words, perhaps this strange little pause is just Rickenbacker being Rickenbacker.

In hindsight, it’s obvious that a guitar like this had to exist; it had simply never occurred to me that it would. But here it is: a transitional 460. Go figure.

And that’s not even the biggest surprise. That would be the fact that this transitional 460 suffers from a bad case of Glueglo (click to learn more), despite lacking the very thing that everyone “knows” causes it: checkered binding. Let’s break it down.

We’ll start with the whole “transitional” bit. While we have talked a lot on this site about the early 1970s transitional era (click here to learn more)—Rickenbacker’s evolution from “vintage” 1960s specifications to “modern” 1970s specifications—it’s almost always been in the context of models like the 360 (click to learn more) and 4001 (click to learn more). In reality, though, every model went through the same process. The 460 included.

Picture the 460 in your mind and you’ll probably see one of two guitars: most likely a 1960s model with crushed pearl inlays and toaster pickups, or perhaps a 1970s/80s model with inset poured inlays and button-top Higains—although those are few and far between. This one falls right in between.

This guitar, from 1972, has the vintage crushed pearl inlays (click to learn more), but also the transitional threaded-rod-polepiece Higains (click to learn more) that began replacing toasters across the line in 1970 before being replaced themselves by button-top Higains in 1973. In other words: extra-transitional.

And while that’s unusual enough to catch my eye, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Glueglo that’s afflicted this guitar.

So here’s what virtually every explanation of Glueglo and its cause—including my own on this very site—is going to tell you: from early 1971 to late 1972, Rickenbacker changed the way they applied binding, and that change had unintended consequences.

Instead of using a paste made from binding scraps dissolved in acetone to help the new binding adhere to the wood body, Rickenbacker used straight acetone. That acetone broke down the black colorant in the checkered binding, which then leached into the wood, creating the Glueglo “sweat ring” around the guitar’s perimeter. Makes sense, right?

Here’s the problem with that: the 460—including this particular guitar—never had checkered binding.

And, just in case you think there’s some weird anomaly with this particular guitar, here’s a different 1972 460 with Glueglo and, again, no checkered binding.

And maybe I’m getting too excited about all this, but this feels like a big deal. Clearly something about the story we’ve all accepted is wrong.

So I did what I always do: I went down the rabbit hole to see if I could find another explanation. Let me take you along for the ride.

If you ask Google’s AI assistant what could cause this type of discoloration, it points to an interaction between acetone and binding dyes. Sounds good, right? Until you realize that my article on Glueglo is one of the primary sources cited. So we can’t rely on AI—we’re going to have to go old school.

But the basic theory—that some chemical reaction occurred between the straight acetone and the binding, leaching “something” out of the plastic and into the surrounding wood—still makes perfect sense. So perhaps we were just looking at the wrong culprit. Maybe it wasn’t the black dye at all. Maybe it was something in the white bits of the binding.

That seemed like the most logical next step, so I chased that theory down for a bit. I ultimately rejected it for two compounding reasons.

First, the use of acetone wasn’t new—it had always been a part of the “paste” method. And Glueglo simply has never appeared outside the “straight acetone” era.

Of course, that doesn’t completely rule out acetone as the issue. The concentration was obviously much higher during the Glueglo era, and that could have been a factor. But many builders have used the straight acetone method for applying binding over the years, and none seem to have developed a Glueglo-type problem.

Put those two facts together, and acetone starts to look a lot less like the sole culprit.

At this point, I got stuck. Then I asked myself a question: how do we know Rickenbacker switched to straight acetone during this period?

Turns out, that’s a pretty good question. Because I pulled pretty hard on that thread and couldn’t find any verifiable documentation. Instead, I kept coming back to some variation of: “employees from the period say…”

That is still evidence. But memory is a funny thing. There are things I remember as clear as a bell that later turned out to be only partially true—or in some cases, complete inventions. I’m not “lying.” I just remember them wrong.

Did something change during this period? Clearly. Do we know exactly what changed? I’m not convinced we do. And that opens up a lot of new avenues to explore.

I’m not going to bore you with all the rabbit holes I went down—solvents and adhesives and glues, oh my! Suffice it to say I can’t point to any one of them and say “that’s it.”

But I did come away with one clear conclusion: our current theory for what caused Glueglo is—at best—incomplete. These guitars prove it.

And I need to go update my article on Glueglo now.

The Rickenbacker price list exploded from just 11 models in 1957 to thirty-six in 1958. Everyone agrees that a number of those models never really existed. Maybe a prototype or two was built, but more than a few of those models never actually made it into production. Take the Model 394—“Capri Series, Thick Body. Three Pickups, Vibrato Unit, Full-Sized Body With Hand-Carved Top and Back.” There’s no controversy there. Everyone agrees it never existed.

But then there’s the Combo 650, which first appeared on the 1957 price list alongside the Combo 850.

Here’s how the 1957 catalog shown above describes it:

“The Combo 650 Spanish guitar has the new extreme cut-away body allowing the player to use all frets on the neck with equal ease. This feature has been accomplished without detracting from Rickenbacker’s distinctive styling. Separate volume and tone controls with an additional tone-control switch produce full bass and treble tones. This model is available in a natural hand-rubbed maple finish or Turquoise Blue.”

The accompanying photo, however, is of a Combo 850.

In referring to the Combo 850 and 650, the Smith book tells us the “two guitars were identical except for the number of pickups and their electronics.” The Smith book has photos of the Combo 850…but not the Combo 650.

Fair enough—the Smith book is almost forty years old now. What does Martin Kelley say? “A one pickup Combo 650 featuring the new body design and a single horseshoe pickup near the bridge was also offered, although only four or five examples are known to have been completed.” And he has a contemporary picture of one. Now we’re getting somewhere!

This is the point where I’d normally send you off to read our overview of the Combo 850 for some important context. Unfortunately, I haven’t written it yet. And since we can’t really understand the Combo 650—which I am not yet conceding actually exists—without first understanding the 850, we’re just going to have to cover both.

For starters, the Combo 850 pictured in the catalog page above—and in the 1957 trade show photo below—isn’t the Combo 850 that ultimately went into production.

“Aha!” you say. “Only one pickup! That’s a Combo 650!” Not so fast. We’ll get there.

The Combo 850—and, theoretically, the Combo 650—was an evolution of the Combo 600 and 800 (click to learn more). And the earliest prototypes—the ones you photograph for catalogs and take to trade shows—were different from the production model.

The shape is familiar today—it lives on in the 325C64 (click to learn more) and 350V63 (click to learn more)—but unlike its modern brethren, the Combo 850 had a solid body with a German carved top (click to learn more).

That shape in itself came directly from the Combo 800, with a dramatically reshaped upper cutaway.

Here’s where the production Combo 850 differed from the prototype. The Combo 800 featured the “Multi-Unit Pickup” (click to learn more)—two side-by-side coils underneath the horseshoe magnet that could be individually selected. Technically, it was the first commercially available humbucking pickup, as well as the first coil-splittable humbucker. But Rickenbacker didn’t quite understand what they had created; they thought of the two coils as two individual pickups.

The Combo 600, on the other hand, had only one coil hiding below the horseshoe magnet. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two models at a glance is to count the switches: the Combo 600 had one, while the Combo 800 had two—one for the same tone presets as the Combo 600, and one to select coils.

So if we return to our prototype Combo 850 and count the switches, we come up with two. Which tells us this prototype borrowed its electronics package directly from the Combo 800. That’s not what the production model got.

The production Combo 850 got the same single-coil horseshoe pickup at the bridge as the Combo 600 had, plus the brand-new toaster pickup at the neck. So what did the theoretical Combo 650 get?

Just the single-coil horseshoe pickup. I’d show you a picture, but I can’t find one. And believe me, I have tried. Apart from the lone contemporary picture in the Kelley book, photographic proof of the Combo 650 does not exist.

I mean, there are two Combo 850s in this 1958 trade-show photo, along with several prototype models that never actually made it into production. Even the very 1958 325 John Lennon would buy a couple of years later in Hamburg is sitting right there in this picture. But there’s no Combo 650.

Ultimately that’s the problem. We have photographic proof that at least one guitar—probably a prototype—was built. The production data in the Smith book, which we know are problematic, indicate that a total of six were produced between 1957 and 1959. But none of them have ever surfaced. Not one.

And let’s be clear about what has never surfaced: an instrument with the Combo 850 body and a single horseshoe pickup in the bridge position. Not even the prototype we have photographic proof of has ever turned up.

My theory? It was reworked at the factory into a Combo 850. My evidence? I’ve looked at every Natural 850 I can find and identified one 1957 example whose wood grain matches the prototype’s remarkably closely. Is it conclusive? No. Is it close? Very.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a digital copy of the prototype photo to show you. But trust me—it’s close.

Nor would such a reworking be unprecedented. We know, for a fact, that several 1957 and 1958 prototypes were reconfigured at the factory before they shipped. Even Lennon’s 325 only has two knobs in the photo above—but it had four by the time he got it.

It’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.

Now, I’ve laid out all the reasons I think the Combo 650 is a phantom—little more than vaporware. Here’s why some people disagree.

This is one of the so-called 1958 Combo SPC (for “special”) guitars. The generally accepted theory has been that five of these guitars were built for a trade show—and indeed, at least one of them appears in photographs from a 1959 show. As six examples have now been documented, however, it appears that theory may need revision.

They differ from the production Combo 850 in a number of important ways:

• Three-piece maple/walnut/maple necks with a paddle-shaped headstock, compared to the production model’s one-piece maple neck with Combo 600/800-style “swoosh” headstock.

• Multi-piece flamed maple “butcher block” bodies.

• Two toaster pickups rather than the production model’s toaster-and-horseshoe combo.

• Six-saddle bridge and trapeze tailpiece rather than the bridge and bridgeplate combo found on the production model.

• Teardrop pickguard with four knobs/one switch rather than the production 850’s pickguard with two knobs/one switch.

So what do these not-Combo 850s have to do with the Combo 650? Well, several of them have this penciled in the truss rod adjustment rout:

I realize that’s a little difficult to make out, but if you look closely you’ll see it reads “650.”

Surely that’s not the sum of the evidence? It’s not. Three of them, including the one below, show no evidence of ever having had a neck pickup.

And then there’s the most conclusive piece of evidence: the serial numbers (click to learn more). The serial number scheme Rickenbacker used for solidbody guitars in the 1950s told us a little bit about the guitars themselves. They included a “C” for Combo, then 4 for the 400, 6 for the 600, and 8 for the 800. Usually the number came first, followed by the letter, but sometimes it was reversed. Two of these guitars carry serial numbers beginning with “C6.”

Seems pretty conclusive to me. I will absolutely concede that some of these Combo 650 SPCs were built. But I think that we can all agree that these guitars—both the 650 and 850 versions—are not the production models. They’re…specials.

But a production Combo 650? The fact is that there is absolutely no evidence for one apart from the questionable data in the Smith book.

And I’m not just waving away the Smith data. If you count prototypes and SPC models, you get mighty close to six. Close enough, in fact, that I suspect the figure may simply be counting things that perhaps shouldn’t be counted together. Could there be one or two “real” Combo 650s lurking out there somewhere? Of course there could. But does building one or two examples really make something a production model? I’d argue no.

So why do the books and community accept its existence? I think “must” is doing a lot of work here.

Look: everyone knows that the Combo 600 and 800 are real. Period catalogs and price lists describe both the Combo 650 and 850, and everyone knows that the Combo 850 is real. Add to that the fact that the community spent significant effort investigating and proving the existence of the Combo 650 SPC guitars, and it just feels inevitable that the production Combo 650 must also be real. It’s an entirely reasonable conclusion.

Except I just don’t think it is.

To be clear, I am not arguing that no guitar called a “Combo 650” ever existed. Clearly, some did. I am arguing that there is no evidence that a production model matching the catalog description was ever built.

Case closed. For now.

If you didn’t click the link above to read about the first modern Rickenbacker guitars—the Combo 600 and 800—here’s a second chance.

The 481 built on the 480’s better-than-expected success, but was a more thoughtful and deliberate take on the basic idea of “what if 4001, but guitar?” So let’s take a brief moment to remind ourselves of what the 480 got right—and wrong—to help us better understand the 481.

In 1972, Rickenbacker’s guitar sales were dismal, but 4001 (click to learn more) demand was beginning to boom. Hoping to capitalize on the latter to help with the former, Rickenbacker slapped a guitar neck onto a 4001 body to create the 480.

In a bid to keep costs down, all of the 480’s parts—apart from the new bolt-on neck—came straight from the Rickenbacker storeroom. Which caused a pretty significant geometry problem.

In order to both mimic the look of the 4001 with its pickguard-mounted pickup and accommodate the tall stock Rickenbacker 6-saddle bridge, the bolt-on neck had to be set at an angle that proved to be less than ideal.

The strings just barely cleared the polepieces of the top-mounted bridge pickup and could even buzz against them when playing high up the neck. Meanwhile, the pickguard-mounted neck pickup couldn’t be raised close enough to the strings, leaving it far too quiet in the mix.

On top of the geometry problems—and despite them—because it used the new transitional Higain pickups, it still sounded like a Rickenbacker. Which was, in itself, a problem.

The primary reason Rickenbacker guitars had fallen out of favor by the early 1970s was the very same clean, chimey sound we love them for today. Rock music had gotten heavier and dirtier. Rickenbackers hadn’t. The new Higains were intended to be a step in that direction—thus the name—but they were a baby step at best.

That said, the 480 quickly became the highest-volume guitar in the Rickenbacker lineup. So they were clearly on the right track. The question then shifted from “what if 4001, but guitar?” to “what if 4001 guitar, but different?” The answer came in 1974 with the 481.

There were two clear problems with the 480: the geometry and the pickups. The 481 tackled both head-on.

We’ll start with the pickups, because they helped solve both problems. First, the 481’s “Super Humbucker” pickups were an all-new design—and Rickenbacker’s first proper humbucker. While not aggressively overwound like some of today’s designs—typically measuring between 7 and 8k ohms—they nonetheless gave the guitar a much wider sonic range.

You’ll notice I hedged a bit about this being Rickenbacker’s first humbucker. 1954’s Combo 800 (click to learn more) featured a two-coil horseshoe pickup that is arguably the very first humbucking pickup ever made—but Rickenbacker never bothered to patent it or even lean into the idea, leaving them out of the Gibson/Gretsch “who was first” debate.

You’ll note in the photo above the gap between the coils, a somewhat unusual feature for a humbucker. I haven’t been able to find any explanation for this design decision, but it does make the pickup noticeably larger than most other humbuckers, as the picture below highlights.

You’ll also notice the Phillips-head screw polepieces. Are they important? Do they make any difference? No. They’re just an unusual and distinctive feature.

The pickups had originally been designed for the 1973 System 490, a John Hall prototype based on a Forrest White (click to learn more) design that featured the nifty party trick of preloaded, interchangeable pickguards with different pickup combinations. Sadly, the System 490 never made it past the prototype stage, but the pickups were already there, just looking for a home.

To further expand the 481’s sonic palette, the addition of a mini-toggle switch to the standard Rickenbacker wiring harness allowed the bridge pickup to be put out of phase, producing a quacky, cutting lead tone.

The new pickups—and the way they were mounted—also helped solve the 480’s geometry problems. While the neck angle did not appreciably change, the new pickups were taller than the Higains they replaced. That allowed the neck pickup to remain mounted below the pickguard while still sitting much closer to the strings.

The bridge pickup also moved from being top-mounted to pickguard-mounted, allowing it to sit farther from the strings and eliminating the buzzing issues found on the 480. Both pickups could then be set at roughly the same distance from the strings, resulting in a much more balanced mix.

And “set” is the correct word, because if you look closely at the photo above, you’ll notice that what appear to be height-adjustment screws have no slots. After 1975, pickup height was set at the factory and could not be easily adjusted.

It could be, of course, but doing so required removing the entire pickguard and adjusting small nuts on the ends of the headless “adjustment screws”.

The pickups weren’t the only difference between the 480 and the 481. The 481 got the “Deluxe” (click to learn more) treatment, with a bound top, triangle inlays (click to learn more), and Grover Rotomatic tuners (click to learn more). It did not, however, gain the Rick-O-Sound (click to learn more) stereo wiring found on most Deluxe Rickenbacker models.

Ironically, one of the features the 480 and 481 adopted to appeal to the “modern” player is now one of their more divisive. Rickenbacker fretboards maintained what we’d now consider a decidedly vintage 7.25” radius until the mid 1980s. The 480 and 481 instead featured a completely flat fretboard while maintaining Rickenbacker’s relatively narrow neck width, a combination many players find cramped and ill-suited to string bending.

And yes, we have to talk about the slanted frets.

Rickenbacker first began experimenting with slanted frets (click to learn more) in late 1969, and the option officially appeared on the 1971 price list.

In theory, the option was available on “most Spanish guitars.” In practice, it seems to have only been available on the 360.

What even was the point of slanted frets anyway? Contemporary factory literature claimed that “this slight slant of the frets across the finger board eliminates the long chord reaches, reduces stretch length, and matches precisely the natural angle of the fretting fingers.” If you look at how your index finger falls as you barre a chord, you can kind of see the point.

So, does it actually work? The consensus today seems to be that it neither helps nor hurts—you really can’t tell the difference when playing. It can, however, be somewhat disorienting if you look closely at your fingers, but look away and you stop noticing.

That said, it didn’t exactly catch on. And while the “Slanted Frets” option remained on the price list through 1984, the factory appears to have stopped producing slanted-fret 360s by 1972.

So naturally, when the 481 launched in 1974, it came standard with slanted frets.

The 481 could be custom-ordered with “standard”, non-slanted frets, but using Register entries as a guide, it appears that box was ticked less than 10% of the time.

It can be surprisingly difficult to tell from photos whether a guitar has slanted or standard frets—the camera angle can dramatically affect your perception. For example, does this guitar have slanted frets?

Viewed from another angle, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

If all else fails, a photo of the end of the fingerboard can settle the question: slanted fret guitars have the patent number stamped on the binding.

Changes over the 481’s life were minor, with the pickup covers being the most obvious. 1974 models featured a textured black plastic cover with only one set of polepieces visible. These early guitars also retained the aforementioned pickup height-adjustment screws

In 1975 the covers changed to chrome-plated plastic, with both sets of polepieces visible. While the height-adjustment screws remained early in the model year, the adjustment feature itself disappeared by year’s end.

The final evolution came in 1976, when “Rickenbacker” was debossed into the center of the chromed plastic covers. This is how the pickups would appear for the remainder of the model’s run.

The other change of note came in early 1976 and was part of a line-wide evolution rather than something specific to the 481. The model had launched in 1974 with a back-painted Plexiglas truss rod cover (click to learn more) that, unlike high-volume models such as the 480, did not carry the model number.

In early 1976, the 481 transitioned to the raised-letter, injection-molded truss rod cover that had become the company standard. By then, however, the 481’s production volume had earned it a model number stamped on the cover.

Which brings us neatly to the model’s reception and sales. It was…fine? By 1976 it had surpassed the 480 as the top-selling Rickenbacker 6-string model. But while the 480 and 481 had helped the company regain some market share, guitar sales remained only a fraction of what they had been in the 1960s. Luckily for Rickenbacker, 4001 demand showed no sign of slowing.

1977 was the peak for the 481, and production fell off a cliff afterwards. It remained on the price list through 1984, but only a handful were produced after 1979, with the last example I have found dating to 1982.

I won’t say the 481 failed—it more or less did what it was supposed to do. It offered the market a Rickenbacker that didn’t sound like a Rickenbacker and helped the company sell some guitars at a time when it needed to. But in the long run, it didn’t leave much of a lasting mark on the lineup.

Except I think it taught Rickenbacker a valuable lesson—or at least tried to, even if the company failed to take heed. By the mid-1970s the market had already decided what a Rickenbacker “was”, and it wasn’t especially interested in having that definition challenged. Neither the 481 nor any subsequent attempt has really shifted the needle. The lesson was simple: the market ultimately has a larger say in what a Rickenbacker “is” than the company that makes them.

Want to learn about another model that tried to change what a Rickenbacker could be? You might be interested in this article on the 380L Laguna:

The first widely available extended-range bass guitar was the 6-string Danelectro UB-2, introduced in 1956. Unlike modern instruments, the 30” scale UB-2 was tuned E-A-D-G-B-E, just like a guitar, but with the low E at E1, the same as a conventional bass. It was designed primarily for studio musicians, allowing guitarists to double on bass without learning an entirely new fingerboard.

Fender took the idea—same scale, same tuning—upmarket with the Bass VI in 1961. Rickenbacker even got into the 6-string game in 1966 with the 4005/6 (click to learn more), although theirs featured a the standard Rickenbacker 33 1/4” scale.

But another Fender model, 1965’s Bass V, was the first proper extended-range 5-string bass, with its 34” scale and standard bass tuning. The fifth string, however, was tuned to a high C rather than the low B we associate with 5-string basses today.

By the mid 1970s, all of these models had disappeared from production. The extended range bass had, by and large, proven to be a commercial dead end.

The market may have spoken, but a handful of innovative musicians and boutique builders kept the idea alive. What is often cited as the first low-B 5-string bass guitar was commissioned by “father of the (modern) six-string bass,” jazz/funk great Anthony Jackson, in 1974. Ironically, Jackson had actually asked for a 6-string. Unhappy with the string spacing on the instrument built by luthier Carl Thompson—best known today for making Les Claypool’s favored instruments—he had it converted to a 5-string. In the end, however, Jackson declared the instrument unplayable, and went back to Thompson in pursuit of the 6-string he had envisioned all along.

The next low-B 5-string was also a custom commission—this time built by Alembic for studio ace Jimmy Johnson. Funnily enough, this bass also didn’t start off as a low-B instrument—Alembic had already built a high-C 5-string bass like the Bass V, and Johnson asked them to take that design and convert it to low-B. And so in 1976 Alembic delivered Johnson what is very likely the first purpose-built low-B 5-string bass.

Through the late 1970s and early 1980s, 5-string basses remained firmly in the realm of high-end boutique builders. That began to change in the mid-1980s, as major manufacturers finally started bringing the format to the mass-market.

Most sources agree that the 1984 Yamaha BB5000 was the first mass-market low-B 5-string bass. Some argue that Steinberger’s 1982 L2-5 deserves that honor, but at that point Steinbergers were still handbuilt in Ned Steinberger’s Brooklyn workshop—making him not exactly a mass-market manufacturer yet.

A number of Japanese makers followed in late 1984 and 1985, including models like the Aria Pro II RSB 2 Deluxe 5, Washburn B-5, and Ibanez RB885. The first major American manufacturer to jump on the bandwagon, in 1986, was—of all companies—Rickenbacker.

The first 4003S/5—because there would be a second one—was little more than a lightly modified 4003S. For starters, the headstock was subtly modified to accommodate an extra tuner—although smaller Schaller M4 units were still used in place of the larger standard Kluson-style tuners found on the 4-string version.

Believe it or not, the two headstocks above are exactly the same overall length. The extra room for the fifth tuner was created by pulling the bass-side shoulder closer to the nut, while leaving the treble side unchanged.

The standard Rickenbacker bass bridge and tailpiece were also modified to handle five strings. A new 5-saddle bridge dropped into a tailpiece redesigned to anchor five strings. The spacers between the strings in the mute section were also removed.

On the electronics side, the 4003S/5 featured a standard toaster pickup at the neck, and a custom-built 5-polepiece Higain pickup at the bridge.

An extra string requires extra neck width, right? Kind of. In what would prove to be the 4003S/5’s Achilles heel, the neck width was widened…by just one millimeter.

The resulting cramped string spacing would prove to be the 4003S/5’s defining weakness. It remains, by far, the most common complaint owners have about the model. While Rickenbacker had been among the first to the market, the cramped string spacing meant the bass never really found a market beyond a handful of the Rickenbacker faithful.

And so, while the overall market for 5-string basses continued to grow—with the 500-pound gorilla known as Fender finally joining the fray with its first 5-string Jazz Bass model in late 1989—Rickenbacker’s annual sales of the 4003S/5 never did. Not only did Rickenbacker fail to gain market share, they actually lost it despite maintaining relatively steady production throughout the product’s life. What had begun as a niche product became an increasingly niche product. Rickenbacker finally pulled the plug on the 4003S/5 in 2002. Or at least the first version.

That isn’t to say the seventeen-year run wasn’t without its highlights. There were fretless 4003S/5s:

Color of the Year (click to learn more) 4003S/5s:

Several BH/BT (click to learn more) 4003S/5s:

And even a handful of painted-fingerboard Blackstar (click to learn more) 4003S/5s:

Enough to make them interesting collector’s pieces today, but not enough to drive sales. So when Rickenbacker decided to try again in 2018, they knew they needed a different approach.

While the silhouette may have been familiar, the second 4003S/5 was a ground-up redesign. A new bridge. New pickups. And, perhaps most importantly, a neck width designed to meet the expectations of modern 5-string bassists.

Three millimeters wider than the first version—and four millimeters wider than the standard 4003—the new neck’s string spacing was immediately praised for being “just right” by those who played it. At last, the original 4003S/5’s biggest weakness had been solved.

The bridge was an off-the-shelf—yet top-of-the-line—Schaller BD-5 with roller saddles. Rather than reinvent the wheel, Rickenbacker went the proven-technology route. The pickups, however, are where the new 4003S/5 got really interesting.

Dubbed the “TriPower” by Rickenbacker—and quickly nicknamed the “Dorito” by the Rickenbacker community—it was Rickenbacker’s first all-new pickup design since the HB1 in 1989. And while its space age appearance was somewhat divisive, it was unlike anything Rickenbacker—or, really, anyone else—had produced before.

At the TriPower’s heart are two bar magnets that angle outward toward the low B string, giving the pickup its distinctive triangular shape. Despite the two magnets, however, it isn’t a humbucker. Instead of two separate coils, a single coil surrounds both magnets. The idea was that widening the magnetic field beneath the B string would produce a stronger, fuller low-end response.

Buyers could choose between two versions of the new 4003S/5: the traditional maple-bodied, rosewood-fingerboard 4003S/5, or the oil-rubbed walnut, maple-fingerboard 4003S/5W. The overwhelmingly successful launch of the W Series (click to learn more) in 2014 had already proven there was a sustained market for basses with both finished and unfinished fingerboards.

There was one very minor change to the 4003S/5 early in its production run. For the first three months of production—April to June 2018—the neck pickup was mounted beneath the pickguard, just like a standard 4003.

Starting with the next production batch in August—and for the remainder of the model’s run—the neck pickup would be mounted to the top of the pickguard.

Why? No official explanation was ever offered, but people who have compared both versions have suggested that due to its lower location, the neck pickup on the under-pickguard-mounted models sits too low in the mix. For a model designed to emphasize lower frequencies, that seems less than ideal. It therefore seems likely that Rickenbacker raised the pickup closer to the strings to make it more prominent. But we’ll probably never know for sure.

The initial reaction to the 4003S/5 was overwhelmingly positive, as were sales. Ironically, while the redesigned neck earned widespread praise, the biggest complaint centered on the instrument’s sound. Not that it sounded bad—its low B response in particular was widely praised—but it didn’t sound like a Rickenbacker.

Rickenbacker pulled the plug on the second 4003S/5 at the end of 2022, and it’s not entirely clear why. Sales remained very strong—if anything, they appear to have been growing slowly—and Register data suggests that only the 330, 360, and 4003 consistently outsold it over its lifespan. So why discontinue it?

I wish I had a good answer. I don’t. But I do have an observation that makes the discontinuation ever more puzzling.

Go look for information on the second 4003S/5 in the usual Rickenbacker forums. You won’t find much. Rickenbacker fans love to nitpick and obsess over every little detail, but when it comes to the 4003S/5…they mostly don’t.

There are really only two conclusions you can draw from that. Either the 4003S/5 was so quietly good at doing what it was supposed to do that nobody felt compelled to pick it apart, or it wasn’t the usual Rickenbacker crowd who were buying it.

If the first 4003S/5 succeeded at being a Rickenbacker but failed at being a 5-string bass, maybe the second version succeeded at being a 5-string bass but failed at being a Rickenbacker.

That still doesn’t explain why you would discontinue a bass that was selling well—especially if it was broadening your customer base. Still…that answer just kind of feels right, doesn’t it?

We’ll probably never get the real answer—which is likely something as prosaic as “the pickups were too hard to make at a time when post-Covid demand was still through the roof.” What we do know is that, across its two generations, the 4003S/5 tells a fascinating story: first of a company that entered the 5-string market ahead of almost everyone else, but with the wrong product, and then of a company willing to completely reinvent its own design in pursuit of getting it right. And if you take a step back, it’s clear that few Rickenbacker models illustrate the tension between tradition and innovation as cleanly as the 4003S/5.

Want to learn more about basses with too many strings? You might enjoy this article on 8-string Rickenbackers.

The item in question is this:

The fragment is currently offered for sale on Reverb. Here’s the key parts from the description:

“Extremely rare, investment-grade piece of rock history.

Offered here is an original Rickenbacker 360/12 12-string electric guitar famously stage-smashed and hand-signed by Pete Townshend of The Who during the band’s 1972 German tour, which included their Munich appearance on September 4, 1972.

This is not simply a signed guitar — it is a surviving example of Townshend’s legendary on-stage destruction ritual from the height of The Who’s early-’70s power.

During the 1972 German tour, Townshend played and ultimately smashed this Rickenbacker 360/12 on stage in true Who fashion. The remains were recovered and preserved, later signed by Townshend, and have since been carefully maintained as a display artifact.”

The fragment is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity from Julien’s 2021 Music Icons auction and a letter from the family of the original owner.

According to that letter:

“My uncle, Heinz Stapfel (aka Heino), was tour leader for The Who concert tour of Germany in 1972. My uncle collected the fragment…from the stage after Pete Townshend smashed the instrument…either at the concert in Essen or Munich. I don’t know for sure which of these two it was as my uncle has passed away. The fragment of the guitar was signed by Pete Townshend for my uncle in the group’s hotel after the concert.”

The letter also includes a few photos, one of which turns out to be particularly useful. We’ll come back to it shortly.

The fragment sold for $15,360, plus a 27% buyer’s premium—$19,507 out the door—and is currently being offered for $39,999. So is it worth it?

That’s obviously a subjective question, and I won’t try to answer it. And it’s an incomplete question. The better question is “is it worth it…if that’s what it really is?” Because I’m pretty certain it’s not. Let me tell you why.

Let’s begin with the evidence that makes the story plausible:

1. Pete Townshend is a noted Rickenbacker player.

2. Townshend is known for smashing guitars—including Rickenbackers—as part of The Who’s stage act.

3. Townshend did own at least one Mapleglo 360/12 from roughly the same period as this fragment

4. The Who toured continental Europe from August through September of 1972, including stops in Essen and Munich.

5. The signature resembles Townshend’s, and has what appears to be a personal inscription.

Let’s dive into those a bit more.

Pete Townshend and smashed Rickenbackers go together like peanut butter and jelly in most people’s minds, and with good reason. Townshend’s habit of smashing Rickenbackers began as an accident before evolving into a gimmick that played a significant role in building The Who’s early fame and notoriety.

That said, he didn’t smash nearly as many as you probably think. The total death toll from those early years was probably only seven or eight guitars—although several were taped or glued back together multiple times so they could be smashed again.

Importantly, though, all of those seven to eight guitars were Rose Morris export models—mostly 1998s and 1993s—all of which came with a Fireglo finish. One notable exception is the 360S/12 prototype you can read about here—but it too was Fireglo. Whatever this fragment is, it’s not one of these guitars.

But Townshend did own at least one Mapleglo New Style 360/12 similar to the fragment in question. It appeared on stage extensively from mid-1966 through early 1967. Here he is with it in early 1967:

Remember I told you the photos in the owner’s letter would be important? Here’s where they come in. We can’t read the serial number in those photos, but we can still tell something very important from them. Up until roughly March 1966, Rickenbacker serial numbers were stamped in a single line across the bottom of the jackplate. Beginning around March 1966, the two-letter date code moved to the top while the production number remained on the bottom.

On this fragment, there is no date code on the top of the jackplate. That means it was made before March 1966—as was the guitar we know Townshend owned and played.

Corroborating points four and five are straightforward enough. The Who did perform in Essen and Munich during the 1972 tour, and the signature certainly looks like Townshend’s.

But after that, the story starts to fall apart.

Let’s go back to early 1966. By then, Pete’s guitar smashing had become an expected part of The Who’s stage show, but the cost was nearly bankrupting the band. Remember, because of import duties, Rickenbackers were extremely expensive in the UK—around $5,000 in today’s dollars. And while several of Townshend’s guitars were reassembled to be smashed again, Rickenbacker’s semi-hollowbody construction made that much more difficult.

So beginning in early 1966, toward the end of the show Townshend would put his Rickenbacker away and pick up a cheaper—and much more easily repaired—Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster for the grand finale. Townshend’s last documented Rickenbacker smashing from this period came in November 1966—and that was for a promotional film.

Add to that the fact that as The Who’s sound grew heavier the Rickenbackers didn’t, and by mid-1967 Townshend had stopped using them on stage entirely. He played a variety of Gibson and Fender models through late 1967 and early 1968 before settling on the Gibson SG Special, which he would play more or less exclusively on stage through late 1971.

But those SG Specials—many more of which were destroyed than Rickenbackers—started getting hard to find after Gibson discontinued them in 1970. And so in late 1971 Townshend began supplementing his dwindling stock of SGs with several Gibson Les Paul variants, including the Les Paul Deluxe, which would completely supplant the SG in 1973.

Notice what we didn’t mention: Rickenbackers.

And there’s the biggest problem with the story. There is simply no documented evidence of Townshend using a Rickenbacker during the 1972 tour or, frankly, on stage at any point between 1967 and 1980—where he briefly pulled out a refinished Rose Morris 1993 in, ironically enough, Essen and Zurich.

It’s also worth mentioning that by the 1972 tour—likely at least partially due to the limited availability of Townshend’s preferred SG Specials—guitar smashing had become relatively rare. While not comprehensive, The Who superfan Irish Jack Lyons’ book The Who Concert Files identifies the Rome show—which came after both Essen and Munich—as the “first smash” of the tour.

So let’s talk about the last bit: the signature. Now I am not by any means a handwriting expert, but here’s what jumps out at me.

First, it absolutely resembles other verified Townshend signatures. Looping the top of the “P” back across the upstroke to both create the crossbar of the “T” and cross the “t” in Pete is a defining element of his signature.

As Townshend has gotten older, he has simplified his signature. So not only do I believe this could be his, I also think it’s likely an older example. That, too, would tend to support the story.

That leaves the “Heino” bit of the story. Here’s the details of that inscription:

To me, it looks like “Hi nore”, but that’s just one interpretation. The “Hi” certainly appears to be a separate word. I think the most honest thing we can say is that the inscription is open to interpretation, and neither proves nor disproves the provenance.

This whole thing would be a lot easier if we knew what happened to Townshend’s Mapleglo 360/12. Sadly, we don’t. We have no record of it being smashed or, if it wasn’t, what happened to it or where it is today. Believe me, I’ve tried to find the answer to that question.

So where does that leave us? I feel very confident saying that the story as presented is not true. I absolutely do not believe it was collected by a stage hand named Heino after Pete Townshend smashed the guitar during a 1972 performance in Germany.

Is it Townshend’s 360/12 bearing his signature? We simply can’t rule it out. There are enough consistencies to say it’s possible. But when the provenance is almost certainly incorrect, it inevitably casts doubt on everything else.

And this is where I have to be a little hard on Julien’s. A certificate of authenticity should not simply certify that an object exists and came with a story. The whole point of a certificate of authenticity is to test that story against the available evidence. In this case, even a modest amount of research should have raised serious questions about the claimed 1972 provenance.

So is it worth $39,999?

If the provenance were solid, perhaps. Rare pieces of genuine rock history can command extraordinary prices—even if you or I personally wouldn’t pay that much.

But based on the evidence currently available? Absolutely not.

Case closed. For now, anyway.

So why discuss it at all? Because at some point in your Rickenbacker journey you will stumble across this guitar, and you will have questions. So let’s just go ahead and answer them.

One more important fact before we begin. Good pictures of this guitar are few and far between. So several of the pictures we’ll use here are of a replica commissioned by Chris Capozza of Famous Guitar Replicas. While he didn’t build this one entirely by himself, he documented the build step-by-step and has even written a book on the topic. If you really want one of your own, ask him real nice and maybe he’ll build one for you. Or maybe not. It can’t hurt to ask.

Let’s begin with the need that gave birth to this…thing. And that need came, as you might suspect from this article’s title, from Genesis bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford. During the 1973-74 Selling England by the Pound tour, he found himself having to switch back and forth between a bass and a 12-string on numbers like The Cinema Show. A doubleneck bass/12-string was the obvious answer. The only problem was that in 1973, nobody made such a thing. So, he improvised.

If that looks to you like a Rickenbacker 360/12 and 4001 literally duct taped together, that’s because it is in fact a Rickenbacker 360/12 and 4001 duct taped together.

It quickly became apparent that a more permanent solution was required. So Rutherford sent the taped-together 360/12 and 4001 to British luthier Dick Knight and told him something along the lines of “Stick these two together with something better than duct tape, and make it snappy!” And that’s exactly what he got.

Knight harvested the necks and all the parts off the two guitars, and built a brand new instrument from scratch in less than two weeks. According to luthier Gordon Wells, who helped Knight with the build:

“Both necks, the 4001 and the 360, were cut complete from each of the instruments and a stretched body (width-wise) was produced to house both necks, none of the original bodies exist. The body was constructed from birch plywood back and front with sycamore edging and inner support blocks. The cat’s eye sound hole was added to make the guitar appear less clumsy and to make it look more Rickenbacker like. The guitar was fully assembled and checked for playability, then dismantled; the plastic binding added and sprayed black. The lacquer still being soft when collected!”

The lore around this instrument’s donor guitars is very specific—and I believe very wrong. Let’s walk through my argument. The lore clearly states that the donor guitars were a 1973 360/12—serial number ME1661—and a 1965 4001—serial number EG290. The guitar tells a slightly different story.

The guitar components don’t necessarily confirm 1973. We have a 21-fret neck with crushed pearl inlays, and toaster pickups. A 1973 360/12 could have had that, but it would likely had button-top Higains.

That said, nothing about the bass components suggest 1965. We have a neck with a bound bottom, full-width poured inset acrylic inlays, “wavy” Grover tuners, and a Higain bridge pickup. A 1965 4001 would have a neck with an unbound bottom, crushed pearl inlays, Kluson tuners, and a horseshoe bridge pickup.

Then there’s the serial numbers themselves. They line up with the dates, sure, but ME1661 is surrounded by a bunch of 1973 4001s, and EG290 by several 360/12s. And there’s a very important detail about the bass neck’s inlays. The full-width poured inlays were only produced in April and May, 1973. And what’s the two-digit serial number code for May, 1973? ME.

In other words, I think the serial numbers have simply been transposed over the years. The guitar was from 1965, and the bass from 1973. The details sure seem to bear that out. I think it’s time to update the lore.

So let’s have a look at a modern reproduction to get a better idea of what’s actually going on.

Ask me to describe it and I’d say it looks like a stretched 620/12 and a 4001 stapled together, with a slash soundhole thrown in for good measure. It’s a bit of a kitchen-sink design, with nearly every recognizable Rickenbacker styling cue thrown into the mix, and it mostly works. The overall shape is actually not too far removed from the “official” Rickenbacker doubleneck 4080 that would debut in 1975, although the 4080 swapped the neck positions.

Unlike most doublenecks, the Rutherford guitar gave both the guitar and the bass necks their own set of controls. Seeing how the guitar controls were shoehorned in, I suspect they got in the way whenever Rutherford ventured too close to the bass bridge. It’s easy to see why most doublenecks settle for a single set of controls.

Funnily enough, despite launching the 6/12 362/12 doubleneck in 1974 and the 4/6 4080 doubleneck in 1975, Rickenbacker wouldn’t get around to launching a 4/12 doubleneck until 1977’s 4080/12. Presumably Rickenbacker considered the configuration too niche—and, to be fair, they may have had a point—yet thanks to a certain high-pitched Canadian, it would go on to be Rickenbacker’s most famous and sought-after doubleneck.

Rutherford clearly believed he was on to something with his custom Rickenbacker, as he would go on to commission several more doublenecks over the years—including a Microfrets model that harvested parts from the Rickenbacker, a modular Shergold that could be split into two and a Gibson/Yamaha hybrid. At some point the Rickenbacker was modified and reassembled with modern parts, but it was retired from stage work at the end of the 1974 tour.

And now you know all you need to know about the Mike Rutherford doubleneck—a guitar born out of necessity, built in a hurry, used for barely a year, and specific enough that within a few years Rickenbacker was offering exactly the sort of instrument Rutherford had needed all along.

If you find yourself wondering if the Rickenbacker101 “Special Run” page is kept up to date, it absolutely is. If you haven’t checked it lately, it’s worth taking a look to see what you might have missed!

You might call them a special run, but that generally implies a fixed number of guitars built for a specific dealer or market. Not that either. And while “Limited Edition” removes some of that customer-specificity, it still tends to imply a predetermined quantity. These weren’t that, either.

So what, then? What do you call a reissue-style guitar that had a limited ordering window, but where every guitar ordered during that window—for any customer—would be built?

Well, whatever you call them, Rickenbacker called them the 425V63 and 450V63. So what exactly were they? And why were they?

The first question is easier to answer than the second, so let’s start there. At a macro level, they are close reproductions of the entry-level solidbodied 425 and 450 (click to learn more) as they appeared in 1963—thus the V63. And some of the attention to detail was impressive.

But before we jump into that, a quick note on the “425” part of the 425V63’s designation. Astute readers may have already noticed a potential problem: Rickenbacker models ending in a -5 are generally equipped with a vibrato of some sort. The 425V63 does not.

Oddly enough, neither was the original 425 introduced in 1958. Why then did it get a -5? There’s no telling. It just did.

In 1965, however, the designation began to make sense when the 425 received a vibrato—specifically a Japanese unit commonly misidentified as a “Boyd vibrato” (click to learn more). At that point, the existing non-vibrato model was redesignated the 420, and that is how it remained until production ended in 1981. The vibrato-equipped 425 itself disappeared about 1968.

All of which is to say that because the 425V63 was intended to recreate the guitar as it existed in 1963, calling it a 425—even without a vibrato—is entirely correct.

Recreating a 425/450 body for the first time since 1984 required more effort than you might expect. The old jigs and tooling were long gone—by 1999 Rickenbacker had been using CNC manufacturing for several years. Borrowing the 610’s (click to learn more) body wings was simple enough, but the neck-through center section and top routs were unique to the 425 and 450, requiring new programs to be written. And rather than taking shortcuts with a giant swimming pool rout that could be used on either model, both got their own unique top routing pattern.

They needed a different neck section pattern because despite sharing the same outline, the 400 and 600-Series are structurally quite different. The fingerboard on a 610 and 620 sits about 3/4” over the body—similar to a 330 or 360—while a 425 or 450 sits only about 3/8” proud of the body, much like a 4003.

Consequently, the neck blank is smaller and a different CNC program is required. As there were no similar guitar necks currently in the line, a special program would have to have been created.

The contemporary 650 neck came close, sharing the lower deck height (click to learn more), but its neck was wider, extended to 24 frets instead of 21, and featured a heel designed for improved upper-fret access. Close wasn’t close enough, so a dedicated program was needed. And with the exception of a few Boutique one-offs, I’m fairly sure it hasn’t been used since.

And yes, that square heel is correct. While “square heels” have become a generic “vintage” signifier on many Rickenbacker reissues—even when not technically correct—the original 425 and 450 didn’t transition from square heels to rounded until 1964.

The headstocks reveal another nice detail. As new in 1963, the student model 425 featured white plastic button Kluson Deluxe tuners. The entry-level 450 had nickel-plated button Kluson Deluxe. The 1999 reissues nailed this differentiating detail.

But while we’re looking at the headstock, there’s one detail they didn’t get quite right: the truss rod cover (click to learn more). The “MADE IN U.S.A.” imprint was added below the Rickenbacker logo in 1964 at Rose Morris’s request, making it technically anachronistic on these 1963-inspired models. Were Rickenbacker to remake these guitars today, they could simply borrow the 360/12C63’s “correct” truss rod cover. But that part wouldn’t exist until 2005.

The wiring on the one-pickup 425V63 was also absolutely correct—a fact that confused more than a few people when it first appeared. The switch is only a two-way switch—which was apparently a difficult part to source in 1999—with a low-pass filter “strangle” or “dark” setting in one position, and a standard volume/tone setting in the other.

And here’s one more absurdly specific detail tied directly to those hard-to-source switches: the switch tip.

Everyone knows that the Switchcraft 3-way switch that has appeared on pretty much every Rickenbacker model ever (almost) always has a black switch tip. But the 2-way Switchcraft switch used on one-pickup models in the 1950s and 1960s usually had a chrome switch tip. And so it does on the 425V63.

One area they got it just plain wrong—but also unfortunately right—was the bridgeplate and bridge. You see, Rickenbacker has used two lengths of bridgeplates over the years. From 1954 to 1962—and then again from mid 1965 to 1981—they used a “long” bridgeplate.

But from 1963 to mid-1965—the period these guitars were trying to emulate—a shorter bridgeplate was used, with a correspondingly smaller cutout in the pickguard to accommodate.

The 425V63 and 450V63 used the “incorrect” longer bridgeplate. Why? We’ll probably never know, but I’d wager there were a couple boxes of long bridgeplates left over from 1984 sitting on a shelf somewhere in Santa Ana. If we know anything about the Hall family, it’s that they don’t throw anything away.

Ironically, the bridge itself was historically correct—and that’s probably the one thing modern players wish wasn’t.

In 1962, Rickenbacker changed the bridge to a floating one-piece, height-adjustable intonated bridge. And given when it was introduced, it was intonated for a wound G string as was commonly used at the time. But by the end of the 420 and 450’s lives, most players had switched to plain G strings—which do not intonate correctly at the same place as wound G strings. Yet Rickenbacker never updated the design.

And so the 425V63 and 450V63 used the “correct” bridge—probably found in a box on the same shelf as the bridgeplates—dooming modern players to perpetually out-of-tune G strings.

But these guitars came with a saving grace that excuses a number of minor sins: Rickenbacker chose the 425V63 and 450V63 as the debut platform for the reproduction scatterwound toaster pickup.

The vintage toaster pickup had been completely phased out and replaced by Higain pickups by late 1974, and it did not appear on any models until the launch of the B-Series guitars in 1982.

But while those B-Series toasters were more than mere cosmetic replicas, neither were they accurate reproductions of the vintage pickups that had first appeared in 1957. They were wound much hotter than the originals—typically to around 12k ohms, hotter even than contemporary Higains—and consequently sounded quite different than the pickups they were meant to emulate.

In preparation for what would become the C-Series of vintage reproduction models, John Hall spent over a year analyzing and deconstructing vintage pickups in order to build the most accurate replica possible—even down to randomizing the bobbin winding pattern to mimic the inconsistencies introduced by the original hand-winding process. Thus the “scatterwound” designation.

But the 425V63 and 450V63 got the pickups first. And while I tend to avoid the subjective here, I’ll just say that I own a 450V63, and when I want to explain to someone what a Rickenbacker “sounds like”, that is always the guitar I grab. Hall nailed it.

So we have two fairly accurate replicas of somewhat obscure models, made for a very limited time. Why? Well, there was a third model offered at the same time that might make it a little bit clearer: the 325/12V64 (click to learn more). Which, of course, recreated the one-off, rarely-played 12-string 325 built for John Lennon in 1964.

And while I assume everyone here already knows this, on a 1963 visit with his sister in the US before Beatlemania took hold on our side of the pond, George Harrison bought himself a Fireglo 1962 425—his first Rickenbacker—which he had painted black to match Lennon’s 325.

So we have a limited-time offering of two “minor,” rarely-used Beatles guitars. And if there is anything true in this world it is this: Beatles fans will buy anything related to the Fabs.

That explains the 425V63 and 325/12V64. How do you explain the 450V63? I honestly think the answer may be as simple as, “why not?” They were already making the husk, so why not offer an “add a pickup” option for anyone who might want one?

Although to be fair, Harrison’s 425 was later modified to add a second pickup—effectively making it a 450. That said, the guitar did not appear in that configuration during its brief period of onstage use in late 1963 and early 1964, so that connection is probably best viewed as incidental.

Both models were offered in Jetglo and Burgundyglo—and yes, they added the “-glo” suffix that had quietly been dropped from the catalog in 1976 back to the Burgundy (click to learn more). Jetglo makes perfect sense, but why Burgundyglo? It wasn’t even available in 1963. Somebody at the factory must have liked it.

Actually, the buying public did too. Final production numbers on the 425V63 were 84 Jetglo and 36 Burgundyglo, for a total of 120. On the 450V63, final numbers were 61 Jetglo and 80 Burgundyglo, 141 total. It seems like “might as well offer a 450 while we’re at it” was a solid idea.

There’s one lingering mystery we haven’t addressed yet: why were the models “V63s” when the ostensible inspiration was a 1962 model?

That’s a great question, and it raises a larger one: most of the Beatles “V” models were a year “late”. 325V59? Based on a 1958 325. 360/12V64? Based on a 1963 360/12. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

In this particular case it doesn’t really matter—the specifications on the 1962 and 1963 425 and 450 were virtually identical. But why Rickenbacker used this convention—which they “fixed” with the C-Series reissue models—in the first place? I’ve never come across a satisfactory answer.

We’ll end on one ironic note. Original 425s and 450s have long represented some of the least expensive opportunities to dip your toes into the vintage Rickenbacker market. But because the 425V63 and 450V63 were only offered for a short period and built in relatively small numbers, they now find themselves in the unusual position of often being worth more than the guitars they were designed to reproduce.

Which means Rickenbacker must have done something right, right?

In 1977 Norlin, Gibson’s parent company, sued Ibanez over their use of Gibson’s “open-book” headstock. That case was settled out of court, yet it became attached to an entire generation of Japanese-made guitars—many of which were made long before the lawsuit was filed, and many more after.

“Lawsuit Era” is a convenient misnomer. It’s a shorthand we all use to describe a period when Japanese manufacturers went from building inexpensive copies of American guitars to building instruments that could compete with—and in some cases surpass—the originals they were copying. The lawsuit is part of that story, but only a small part. So what really are Lawsuit Era guitars, and what was the Lawsuit Era itself?

And before you ask, while yes, we tend to picture Fender and Gibson copies when we think of the Lawsuit Era, there were also Rickenbacker copies—some of them shockingly good. Nothing like today’s cheap Chinese-made “Chickenbacker” counterfeits. These guitars proudly wore their own brand names on their headstocks and made no attempt to pass themselves off as genuine Rickenbackers. They were simply well-made, reasonably priced replicas of guitars that people actually wanted.

Which is why, ironically, Lawsuit Era Rickenbacker bass copies abound, while guitar copies are comparatively rare: the peak of the Lawsuit Era aligns almost perfectly with the nadir of demand for Rickenbacker guitars.

But before we talk about the history of the Japanese guitar industry and the rise of the Lawsuit Era, we should have a brief conversation about intellectual property. Because if you think that questions about what is and is not protected were settled during the Lawsuit Era, Fender’s attorneys would like to have a word.

Broadly speaking, there are four basic pillars of protection of intellectual property: patents, trademarks, trade dress, and copyrights.

A patent protects an invention, and grants its creator exclusive rights to that invention for a fixed period of time. When a patent application is filed, the Patent Office asks three basic questions: Is it new? Is it non-obvious? And is it useful? If the answer to all three is yes, a patent is generally granted.

Plenty of things that are just part of the electric guitar landscape today began life protected by patents. Like Gibson’s P.A.F.—“Patent Applied For”—humbucking pickups. Or the Stratocaster’s “Original Countour Body”, beneath which the words “Pat. Pend.”, “Patent”, and eventually nothing at all have appeared over the years.

That’s the important thing to know about patents: they expire. After seventeen to twenty years—depending on when the patent was filed—the patent expires and the invention enters the public domain, available for anyone to use.

And by the heart of the Lawsuit Era, all those early patents were expiring. The coming battles would not be about how guitars worked—they would be about what they looked like.

This brings us neatly to our second and third protection pillars, which overlap quite a bit: trademarks and trade dress.

If patents are meant to protect inventions, trademarks and trade dress are meant to protect brands.

Trademarks have evolved over the years. Originally, they were largely limited to things like names, logos, and slogans that were indelibly linked to a particular product or company. Appearance wasn’t really part of the equation.

But over time, the idea that shapes—or even colors—could have that same connection to a brand took hold. These visual identifiers, which we now refer to as trade dress, can be protected just like more traditional trademarks. The shape of a Coca-Cola bottle and even the specific shade of red associated with the company’s branding are both protected examples.

To receive trademark protection, a company generally must show that a name, logo, slogan, or other identifier is distinctive and helps consumers identify the source of a product. Put another way, when consumers see it, they immediately know who made it.

Trade dress falls into that “other identifier” bucket. The difference is that instead of protecting a name or logo, it protects the visual appearance of a product when that appearance has become closely associated with a particular brand.

Importantly, trademarks and trade dress have no fixed expiration date as long as they remain in commercial use and are actively defended.

Copyright is a bit different from our other three protection pillars. Rather than protecting inventions or brands, it protects creative works such as books, paintings, photographs, and music.

Historically, copyright had little relevance to the guitar industry. Few people would argue that a Stratocaster was a book, a painting, or a song. But in recent years some courts have become more receptive to the idea that industrial designs can also be artistic works deserving of copyright protection.

Which is why, nearly fifty years after the Gibson-Ibanez lawsuit, Fender’s attorneys are once again arguing over who can legally build a Stratocaster-shaped guitar. Their recent victory in Germany came when the defendant failed to show up in court, so we still don’t know how that strategy will fare when someone decides to fight back.

So that’s our whirlwind tour of intellectual property. Now let’s talk about Japan. Because to understand the Lawsuit Era, you need to understand what was happening there after World War II.

The war left much of the country’s industrial base devastated. Rebuilding it became a national priority. During the 1950s and 1960s Japanese manufacturers rapidly modernized, investing heavily in new machinery, manufacturing techniques, and export-oriented industries.

At first, many of the products flowing out of Japan were inexpensive consumer goods aimed at foreign markets. Cameras. Radios. Televisions. Tape recorders. In the United States, “Made in Japan” was often shorthand for “cheap.”

But there was a catch: Japanese manufacturers were getting better. Much better.

Companies that had begun by competing on price increasingly found themselves competing on quality. By the late 1960s and early 1970s Japanese firms were producing cameras, audio equipment, motorcycles, and automobiles that could stand alongside—and often surpass—their American and European competitors.

Now take everything I just said and replace “cameras” or “motorcycles” with “guitars“.

Early Japanese guitars were mostly inexpensive beginner instruments exported under dozens of different brand names. They were affordable, widely available, and often featured…interesting designs that would never be mistaken for a Fender, Gibson, or Rickenbacker.

Despite the bewildering array of brand names, much of the industry’s output came from a relatively small number of factories, including Fujigen, Matsuoka, Guyatone, Matsumoku, and Teisco.

And the more guitars these factories cranked out, the better they got. Meanwhile, back in the US, Fender had been sold to CBS in 1965 and Gibson to Norlin in 1969. And in both cases, the new owners were generally more focused on profitability than product. Quality began to suffer.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in the early 1970s the Japanese manufacturers began making very faithful reproductions of golden era Fenders and Gibsons for the notoriously picky Japanese domestic market.

And some of the copies were really quite good. In some cases, the fit and finish were even better than the guitars coming out of the US factories. And even in the pre-internet age, word got around.

Since Ibanez found itself at the center of the lawsuit that gave the Lawsuit Era its name, let’s take look at how its product line evolved over this period.

By the late 1960s, Ibanez was already exporting inexpensive guitars to the United States. Like many Japanese instruments of the era, they were affordable, widely available, and often featured designs that would never be mistaken for American guitars.

That changed in 1970 when Ibanez moved production to Fujigen—one of Japan’s premier guitar factories. Almost overnight, the catalogs transformed.

No more crazy body shapes. No more weird pickups. Instead, the 1971 catalog is full of credible Les Paul, Stratocaster, SG, and Jazz Bass replicas.

They weren’t exact replicas…yet. The woods were a little cheaper, the necks on the Gibson-style guitars bolted on, and the electronics remained somewhat crude. But they looked the part, were well made, and sold for a fraction of the price of the American originals.

It took a few years for the large American companies to really notice. But once they did, they realized they were in trouble. Let’s return to our intellectual property pillars of protection. We’ve already established that the patents had all expired. But what about the trademarks? What about the protected trade dress?

Brand and model names had all long since been trademarked. But the idea that the shape of a guitar might itself be protectable intellectual property was still in its infancy.

If we go back to our Coca-Cola bottle, it had received one of the earliest “non-traditional” trademarks in US history in 1960, making it one of the first products whose shape alone enjoyed legal protection. Could the same concept apply to guitar shapes?

Over 1974 and 1975 both Gibson and Fender issued a blizzard of trademark applications in an attempt to protect their designs from these Japanese imitators. Who were getting better all the time, it must be noted.

And while we’ve singled out Ibanez since they would become Gibson’s first target, they were far from alone. Brands like Burny and Greco and Univox and many more were cranking out increasingly faithful copies of Gibsons and Fenders…and even Rickenbackers.

Over the course of 1974 and 1975 the trademark approvals started rolling in. They weren’t everything Gibson and Fender had hoped for.

Remember our rough test of “when consumers see it, they immediately know who made it”? The Patent and Trademark Office determined that, given the age of these designs and the fact that they had been copied since almost day one, that test simply wasn’t met when it came to things like the shape of a Les Paul or a Stratocaster body.

Headstocks, though, were a different story. Those passed the test. Those received trademarks.

And with that, we arrive at the lawsuit that would give the Lawsuit Era its name.

On June 9, 1977 Norlin Group—Gibson’s parent company—filed suit in Philadelphia against Elger Company, Ibanez’s American distributor, over Ibanez’s use of Gibson’s trademarked “open-book” headstock and several inlay designs that had also received trademark protection.

Notice what’s missing from that list: Les Paul bodies, SG bodies, and virtually every other aspect of the guitars themselves.

The case did not go to trial. Faced with Gibson’s trademark registrations and a legal landscape that appeared increasingly unfavorable, Elger and Ibanez settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, and agreed to stop using Gibson’s trademarked designs.

Ironically, Ibanez’s reputation for quality had grown so strong by this point they had already begun moving away from the copies and towards selling original designs before the lawsuit was even filed.

Honestly, the Lawsuit Era should more properly be called the “Cease and Desist Era.” Once Gibson had demonstrated a willingness to defend its trademarks, most manufacturers saw little reason to pick a fight they were unlikely to win. A sternly worded letter was usually all it took.

The copies didn’t disappear overnight, and they continued to be sold for years in regions beyond the reach of the American courts. But the US was where the volume was, and manufacturers understood that if they wanted access to that market, they had to play by its rules.

Which brings us, at long last, to how Rickenbacker fits into this story.

Rickenbacker did not follow Gibson and Fender’s lead and spend the mid-1970s filing trademark applications. John Hall himself admitted “my dad never filed a trademark in his life”. So from the perspective of the Japanese manufacturers, Rickenbacker still appeared to be fair game even after the Ibanez settlement.

But if you page through those earliest Lawsuit Era Ibanez catalogs—or the catalogs of any other Japanese brand—you won’t find any Rickenbacker models. Remember, in the early 1970s hardly anyone was buying Rickenbacker guitars, and the 4001 bass had not yet exploded in popularity. That would change in 1973.

Of course, those were not be the first Japanese Rickenbacker copies. In the wake of Beatlemania a variety of Rickenbacker copies began appearing in the US and Europe during the mid-to-late 1960s. Many were made by Teisco and wore names like Coronet, Idol, and Fandel.

These weren’t what you’d call faithful reproductions. “Rickenbacker-inspired” is probably the kinder description.

Such guitars even got a whiff of respectability when, amid growing frustration with Rickenbacker’s delivery delays, UK distributor Rose-Morris comissioned a line of guitars from Teisco to be sold under the Shaftesbury brand (Shaftesbury Street being the location of their main showroom).

But these crude imitations really weren’t seen as a serious threat, and aren’t the guitars we’re talking about when we discuss the lawsuit era. Which takes us back to 1973.

You have to hand it to Ibanez and Fujigen: they were watching the market closely. As soon as demand for the 4001 began to explode, they were right there with an offering of their own.

And we’re bringing Fujigen into the discussion because, while Ibanez was the primary US brand, these guitars weren’t exclusive to Ibanez. Fujigen would happily sell them to anyone who wanted them as a private-label instrument.

Offered in both set-neck and neck-through versions, these first 4001 copies used a number of off-the-shelf components—most notably Gibson-style “mudbucker” pickups—that kept them from being exact replicas.

Other details, however, were remarkably faithful. The bridge and crushed pearl inlays were essentially copied outright. The bass bridges even develop tail-lift over time!

By 1975, the copies had gotten much closer, with Rickenbacker-style pickups and bridge pickup surrounds—probably sourced from Maxon. They had even changed the full-width crushed pearl triangle inlays to inset poured acrylic, just as Rickenbacker had.

To be fair, there were still differences beneath the surface that helped to keep prices down. The bodies were often multi-piece, multi-layer constructions—with clear poplar tops and backs. Other savings came from inexpensive Japanese tuners, lower value potentiometers, and generic hardware. And, of course, they all featured a single truss rod.

Nor was Fujigen alone. Matsumoku was producing similar copies for brands like Electra and Univox, while Tokai supplied Fernandes and others. But as far as I can tell, only Fujigen offered neck-through copies—all other producers stuck with bolt-on construction.

The one brand we haven’t discussed yet is perhaps the most highly-regarded of them all today: Greco.

By the early 1970s, Greco had largely retreated from export markets to focus on Japan’s domestic market. And if there is one thing we’ve established so far, it’s that Japanese buyers were demanding customers.

And so they got the best of the best.

Would it surprise you to learn that the first “reissue” Rickenbackers weren’t made by Rickenbacker? They were made by Fujigen for Greco.

In 1979—three years before the B-Series guitars—Greco introduced the JLG-85, modeled after John Lennon’s 325s, and the PMB-800 (bolt-on) and PMB-1000 (neck-through) basses, modeled after Paul McCartney’s Wings-era 4001S.

Fun fact: Greco model numbers tell you quite a lot about the product. JLG stands for John Lennon Guitar, and PMB stands for Paul McCartney Bass. The number indicates the original list price—two digits for guitars, three for basses. So the JLG-85 retailed for ¥85,000 and the PMB-1000 for ¥100,000 in 1979—not exactly budget territory.

And that’s really the point. By the end of the Lawsuit Era, the best Japanese manufacturers weren’t simply building cheap copies. They were building serious instruments in their own right.

We have focused on 4001 copies, but starting in 1977 Greco offered Rickenbacker guitar copies as well—320, 330, and 480 replicas.

One of the most impressive details on the Greco copies is the tailpiece—and it’s further evidence that they weren’t trying to pass these guitars off as genuine Rickenbackers. They copied the distinctive Rickenbacker harp shape almost exactly, but replaced the famous “R” with a Greco “G”. They weren’t just selling a Rickenbacker copy. They were proudly proclaiming that the guitar was built with Japanese quality.

By 1979 Ibanez and most other established brands had stopped selling “Lawsuit Era” guitars in the US, although some retailers were still buying grey market guitars from Fujigen and Matsumoku. For Gibson and Fender, the Lawsuit Era was largely over.

Rickenbacker, however, still hadn’t moved to protect its intellectual property. So its Lawsuit Era would last a little longer.

It may seem ironic today, given how vigorously Rickenbacker would defend its designs during the John Hall era, just how late to the trademark game Rickenbacker actually was. Even after Hall bought the company from his father in 1984, it would still be years before he began filing trademark applications. And in the meantime, Greco kept making guitars for the Japanese market.

By the early 1980s, the quality of the Japanese manufacturers had become impossible to ignore on the global stage—even if shipments to the US had largely dried up. Fender and Gibson eventually adopted a variation of the old maxim: if you can’t beat them, join them.

In 1982 Fender partnered with Fujigen to produce official Fender instruments for the domestic Japanese market. Gibson followed in 1988 with the launch of the Fujigen-built “Orville by Gibson” brand for Japan. Rather than fighting the Japanese manufacturers, they had decided to work with them.

Despite not having the same legal protections as Gibson and Fender, Rickenbacker still benefited from the climate those companies created. Ibanez, for example, stopped selling copies of all American guitars in the US market—including Rickenbackers—and most of the other major Japanese brands soon followed suit.

But Matsumoku and Fujigen were still making them, and they were still finding their way into the United States—usually under private-label brand names sourced directly from the factories.

To be fair, John Hall had plenty of other things demanding his attention. After purchasing the company in 1984 he had immediately set about overhauling both the product line and the manufacturing process—just in time for a college-radio-fueled resurgence in demand to swamp the factory. The famous Rickenbacker backlog was back with a vengeance.

And realistically, the bootleg private-label guitars finding their way into the US were more of an irritation than a crisis. The bigger problem was the Grecos being sold openly in Japan. Dealing with those would be more complicated.

While the same basic principles around trademarks and trade dress hold true in Japanese law, the standards surrounding product shapes have been much more stringent. This is a gross oversimplification, but once a design has been copied by multiple manufacturers for an extended period, convincing a court that consumers uniquely associate that shape with a single company becomes much harder.

Which meant that by the time Fender and Gibson were securing trademark protection in the United States, seeking similar protection in Japan was already a much steeper climb.

Rickenbacker finally jumped aboard the trademark train in the early 1990s, starting with the easy stuff: their brand name and logo. Then came the headstock shapes. The truss rod cover. And finally, by the early 2010s, even the body shapes themselves—one of the hidden benefits of not being widely copied during the Lawsuit Era.

Being unfashionable at exactly the right moment turned out to be an advantage decades later.

That largely solved the new guitar gray-market issue. But even guitars that predated those trademarks weren’t necessarily safe. Hall became notorious for aggressively defending those trademarks, and over the years countless eBay listings for older Ibanez, Aria, Electra, and other Rickenbacker copies would find themselves on the receiving end of a takedown request—often initiated by Hall himself.

But the trademarks still didn’t solve the Greco problem, though, and that was even more vexing.

This wasn’t a matter of a few copies being sold halfway around the world. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Japan was flush with cash and had become one of the American guitar industry’s most important export markets.

Vintage ‘burst Les Pauls and pre-CBS Fenders were disappearing into massive Japanese collections. Japanese players embraced vintage-style American guitars, and demand for Rickenbackers was stronger there than almost anywhere outside the United States.

So having a high-quality, locally produced alternative available was a real problem. Especially when there was no viable legal strategy to fight them with.

Greco had expanded its line of Rickenbacker copies since Hall had taken over from his father—further proof that the demand was real.

Since there was no practical legal solution, Hall chose a commercial one: flood the zone.

A shortage of authentic product had given Greco a reason to continue producing the copies. Eliminating that shortage by flooding the market with authentic Rickenbackers would remove that reason, Hall must have calculated.

The effect is easy to see in the Rickenbacker register. In the mid-1980’s Japanese entries only account for 6-7% of annual registrations. By the mid 1990s, that figure climbs to over 20%.

For most of the John Hall era, the backlog was a very real thing. Demand simply exceeded the company’s ability to supply it. Therefore every guitar sent to Japan came at the expense of another market. It appears that was a tradeoff Hall believed was worth making.

Rickenbacker pushed every guitar they could into Japan. And the strategy worked. By 1996 Greco had discontinued their Rickenbacker copies.

And that was pretty much that. The irony is hard to miss. The company that spent years without trademark protection ultimately ended its Lawsuit Era without a lawsuit. It ended it by doing what had prompted the Lawsuit Era in the first place—making the guitars people really wanted available.

Rickenbacker’s Lawsuit Era had finally come to an end—twenty years late.

They made a ton of basses over that period, but not a lot of guitars. And the guitars they did make generally aren’t the ones collectors obsess over today.

So there aren’t many surviving examples to document, and for a long time nobody seemed especially motivated to document them anyway. There’s no deep well of shared knowledge and very little established lore to draw upon.

And since this was the pre-pre-pre-internet era, there aren’t easily searchable press releases or archived product pages to help us out either.

That’s a long way of saying be prepared for a lot of speculation and second or third hand recollections on this one. We know these guitars exist, but have no real idea why. Consider yourself warned.

In 1983, before special runs as we think of them today even existed, Rickenbacker produced one of the strangest special runs in their history: a handful of Electro ES-16s.

I say handful because…that’s all I can say. There are at least six of them on the Rickenbacker register, and I’m pretty sure I stumbled across at least one more while researching this article. Beyond that…I just don’t know.

What even is an Electro ES-16? The short answer is that it was a rebadged short-scale Rickenbacker 1000 produced for music schools to sell as a private-label student guitar from around 1963 to 1967. You can read all about the short-scale solidbodies here, or the private-label models like the Electro ES-16 here.

So, an obscure, short-scale student guitar. Not exactly a prime candidate for a reissue or special run, no?

For starters, it’s not a reissue. While reissues had just become a “thing” for Rickenbacker the year before with the introduction of the B-Series guitars (click to learn more), the 1983 ES-16s featured contemporary specifications like a button-top Higain pickup and Grover Rotomatic tuners (click to learn more).

So what then, if not a reissue? Well, what’s one thing we know about F.C. Hall? He never threw anything away.

The conventional wisdom is that “somebody” found semi-finished 1000 bodies from 1967 on some dusty pallet in the back of the warehouse and decided to finish and sell them. That “somebody,” I suspect, was likely John Hall.

This is all speculation, but Hall was helping his father prepare the company for sale—or maybe he had already decided to buy the company himself—at the time these guitars were finished. And what’s one of the things you do when you’re preparing to sell a company? You get rid of all the dead stock.

They never appeared in a catalog or price list, and if there was a “sell sheet” it hasn’t surfaced. So how did they get sold? My guess is that dealers got a call or a letter that said “Hey, we found this weird thing, do you want one?”

Some sources say they were sold as part of a set with a TR25 amplifier—just like the originals were often sold along with a M-8 amp. It sounds plausible, but no hard evidence has surfaced.

Why the Electro branding, though? These guitars were also sold as the Rickenbacker 1000, after all.

I keep coming back to the “clean up the dead stock” theory. You want to get rid of the inventory, but you don’t necessarily want these oddball guitars hanging on dealers’ walls wearing the Rickenbacker name. Or maybe there were just leftover truss rod covers from 1967 they wanted to get rid of too. There certainly weren’t collectors clamoring for an Electro reissue in 1983.

Most of this is a guess. We know they exist…and that’s about it. But guitars that don’t necessarily make any sense are one of the things we all love about Rickenbacker. And the 1983 Electro ES-16s certainly fit the bill.

The short answer is that when I like something, I really like it. I want to know everything there is to know about it. And it’s not just Rickenbackers. Ask me about Jaguar E-Types, Parker Duofold and Vacumatic fountain pens, or Depression-era North Carolina politics—or any other number of subjects—and I’ll talk your ear off.

That’s the important piece: once I learn something interesting, I want to share it.

Like, have you ever wondered why banana flavored candy doesn’t taste like a banana? Long story short—which I admittedly don’t do well—the Gros Michel was the dominant banana cultivar until a fungus wiped it out in the 1950s. The Cavendish replaced the Gros Michel, and that’s what you eat today. And—importantly—the two taste different.

But the “banana candy” recipe was formulated when the Gros Michel was still the world’s go-to. So banana candy does in fact taste like bananas…just not the one we’re used to.

Crazy, right?

I realize that was completely off-topic, but I had to tell you anyway. That’s kind of the point. Once I learn something interesting, I feel obligated to share it. It’s almost a compulsion.

And while I can fall down a bunch of rabbit holes, I always come back to Rickenbackers.

I won’t bore you with the formative stories that created this fascination, but I’ll try to tell you why it’s only gotten stronger the more I’ve learned.

I work for a large French tire manufacturer that is very proud of its heritage of innovation. At over 130 years old, it has spent decades deliberately shaping its future. Every major decision has a rationale. Every course correction has a strategy. Sure, unexpected discoveries happen, but the response to these is always measured, intentional, and carefully planned.

I don’t see any of that when I look at Rickenbacker’s past, and it’s fascinating.

The more I learn, the less Rickenbacker’s history feels like a carefully executed master plan and the more it feels like a collection of happy accidents, fortunate timing, and people making the best decision they could with the information they had at the time.

If I ever wrote a book about it, I’d call it something like “A Series of Mostly Fortunate Accidents”.

That’s another question I get asked a lot: am I ever going to turn all this into a book? I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it.

But the temptation isn’t to write another Rickenbacker history. That’s been done, and done better than I could. The temptation is to write a different kind of Rickenbacker book.

Most of the books that already exist follow a familiar formula: a chronological history with detailed coverage of the early years, model-by-model documentation, and not enough time spent on the John Hall years. And those books are valuable. We wouldn’t know much of what we know without them.

But the story that keeps grabbing me is all the things the books don’t really cover. The unintended consequences. The strange detours. The near-misses. The decisions that seemed insignificant at the time but ended up defining entire eras of the company.

Put simply, there is no master plan, and forcing a chronology onto it doesn’t tell you the real story. The history of Rickenbacker is a collection of happy accidents, improvised solutions, strange decisions, and unintended consequences that somehow produced one of the most distinctive guitar companies on earth. And nobody’s ever really told the story that way.

Maybe that’s why I keep doing this. Every time I think I’ve reached the end of the story, I discover another fortunate accident. And when I learn something interesting, I just have to share it.

So that’s why “all this.” Stick around. I’m just getting started.

And to see all the rabbit holes we’ve already gone down, may I suggest a visit to the Rickenbacker101 Archive?

With only 100 ever sent across the Atlantic to Rose Morris—and a few of those meeting untimely ends at the hands of a certain Mr. Townshend—it’s a rare beast to begin with. Add to that just how unique its specifications are—a double bound body, Rose Morris-style f-hole, and unbound neck with dot markers—and how many famous British Invasion (and later) hands those few guitars ended up in, and it’s no surprise lots of people want one.

But despite all that, Rickenbacker has never officially made a proper 1993 reissue.

You might point to the 1993Plus (click to learn more), but that guitar—built to Pete Townshend’s specifications—is really a mashup of three different instruments: the bound neck and triangle inlays of Townshend’s prototype 360S/12 (click to learn more), the three pickups of his favored Rose Morris 1998, and the 660’s wider neck. None of which, you’ll notice, is a 1993.

But what if I told you that way back in 1987 Rickenbacker did make a reissue 1993? Well, 12 of them, anyway. Or six, if we’re being technical. Maybe. This is their story.

Many people assume the 1998PT Pete Townshend Signature Limited Edition (click to learn more) that entered production in May 1987 was the first Rose Morris-inspired guitar built since the 1960s. But that’s not actually the case.

Several months earlier—in late 1986—a reissue 1997 (with trapeze tailpiece) and 1997SPC (with Accent vibrato) had appeared, with one of the very first examples—customized with gold plastics and his name on the pickguard—going to Tom Petty.

It’s in this narrow window between the 1997 launch and the 1998PT introduction that Sam Ash enters the picture. Or, rather, one specific Sam Ash district manager known today only as “Jimmie D.”

At the time, Sam Ash was still a large brick-and-mortar retailer—and a major Rickenbacker dealer. Like so many others, Jimmie wanted a 1993. And when he saw those first reissue 1997s, he realized he might have the opportunity to do something about it.

So he got on the phone with Rickenbacker and placed a special order. And they accepted it.

So what exactly did Jimmie D. order? 12 guitars—6 with 12 strings, and 6 with 6. He requested they be built on the 360/12V64 (click to learn more) and 360V64 bound bodies, with a Rose-Morris style f-hole, and an unbound neck and dot inlays.

In other words, a 1993. And a 6-string version of one as well.

Now let’s acknowledge that a lot of this story borders on apocryphal.

The story says 12 were ordered—but we don’t know that for a fact. The story also says half were Fireglo and half were Mapleglo, but no Mapleglo examples have ever surfaced. The story says nothing about any left-handed guitars, but at least one left-handed example of both the six and 12-string have surfaced.

Fun fact: I have it on good authority that Jimmie D. was himself left-handed. So maybe those lefty guitars aren’t so mysterious.

Here’s what we do know. A number of these guitars were indeed produced for Sam Ash in March and April of 1987—to the specifications listed above—including at least one left-handed example of both the six and 12-string.

The majority of these guitars wear an “R” tailpiece (click to learn more). However, a number of the 12-strings are fitted with trapeze tailpieces today. Original or aftermarket? Sadly, I don’t have one handy to pull the trapeze bracket to check for screw holes.

Both are technically correct, by the way. The original 1993 began life with a trapeze, but later examples transitioned to the familiar “R” tailpiece

One thing all known examples seem to have in common is their finish. We all know Fireglo can vary dramatically from year to year—or even guitar to guitar—but these guitars consistently look different from the 1997s and 360/12V64s being produced around them: much “browner” around the edges, with far less red than other contemporary guitars.

Was it part of the order’s specification? A different painter? An old can of paint? We’ll likely never know. But we do know what our eyes tell us: these guitars just look different.

Of course, there never was any 6-string original Rose Morris version of the 1993. And you search for these guitars on the Rickenbacker register you won’t find them under 1993—they appear there as 1997WBs. Which I guess is technically correct, but most collectors just refer to these guitars as the “6-string Sam Ash 1993s”. As regards their official factory designation…I simply don’t know

As far as 1993 reissues that a regular person could buy, that’s literally it. Yes, there have been a handful of one-offs, including one for Tom Petty, and there was a special run in 1994 for Norman’s Rare Guitars (click to learn more) that was designated the “1993SPC”…but it had a bound neck and triangle inlays. So not really.

Almost forty years later we still don’t have a proper 1993 reissue. The 4005V proved that Ben Hall listens to the internet. Unfortunately, that example also suggests the loudest voices on the internet may not always represent a sustainable demand.

If that’s the lesson the company ultimately takes away from the 4005V, we may be waiting a very long time for a true 1993 reissue. Or we can always hope that someone like Sweetwater hires Jimmie D.

If you enjoyed this story, it pairs very nicely with this one on the Norman’s Rare Guitars 1993SPC we just mentioned:

Those sometimes-subtle, sometimes-drastic changes can be difficult to put into words, but once you develop an eye for them, it becomes fairly easy to pinpoint a guitar’s era from the headstock alone.

Two of those shapes, however, are distinctive enough that they have gained widely accepted collector nicknames: the “Gumby” headstock, and the “paddle” headstock.

The Gumby term is pretty clear, and more or less makes sense once you understand the context. You can read all about that here if you like.

But the paddle term can be confusing—largely because “paddle” is often used generically in describing Rickenbacker headstocks. As in: “Rickenbacker guitars have a paddle-shaped headstock…”

And that’s fair enough. But there’s a difference between “paddle shaped headstock” and the “paddle headstock”. Let’s get into it so you can easily spot one in the wild.

To understand the paddle headstock, we need first to put it into its historical context. So we’ll start with the original paddle-shaped headstock.

The paddle-shaped headstock first appeared in 1956 on the third modern Rickenbacker guitar, the Combo 400 (click to learn more) courtesy of Roger Rossmeisl (click to learn more). Seventy years later, the same basic shape is still in use—so it’s fair to say he got that one right.

Now you have to remember that in the early days these were hand-cut and hand-sanded, so no two headstocks are exactly alike. But the overall shape and proportions were essentially set from the beginning.

The first major change came in mid-1963, when the headstock on solidbody guitars went on a diet, losing about a quarter-inch in width. Semi-hollowbodies would follow in early 1964.

This is probably the Rickenbacker headstock you picture in your mind. Often referred to as the “vintage” or “skinny vintage” headstock, this is the iconic shape that graced the guitars of Rickenbacker’s 1960s golden era.

The Gumby headstock appeared in 1971, but only on the 360 (click to learn more), and for a very specific and practical reason: the tuners.

Good old Kluson Deluxe tuners had been the standard tuner on most models since the late 1950s. But tuner technology had come a long way since then, and the Kluson Deluxe…had not.

In order to better position the 360 as the flagship model, Rickenbacker wanted to give it a better tuner. One with an improved gear ratio, smoother operation, and a more modern feel. Something like the Grover Rotomatic (click to learn more).

There was only one catch. The Rotomatics didn’t really fit on that skinny vintage headstock. And so was born the Gumby headstock.

The Gumby headstock gained about half an inch in width compared to its vintage predecessor to accommodate the Grovers’ larger posts and bushings. But it lost some of its definition in the process.

The Coke-bottle curve through the middle became less pronounced. The corners got rounded over a bit more. It just looked…fat. And kind of like Gumby.

Most other models retained the Kluson Deluxes and the vintage headstock. And that would remain the status quo until late 1984, when tuners would once again force a change in design.

Kluson went out of business in late 1981 following the death of John Kluson. Rickenbacker replaced the old Deluxe tuners with a Grover tuner that shared a similar footprint. But in early 1984, they were notified that those tuners were also being discontinued. Once again a new solution was required.

John Hall, who had just purchased the company from his father, saw it as an opportunity to upgrade to an objectively superior tuner: the German-made Schaller M6 Mini. There was just one problem—just like the Grover Rotomatics before them, they didn’t fit.

Which may sound ironic given that “Mini” was right there in the name. But once again the problem was on the face of the headstock: the posts and the bushings. Enter the paddle headstock.

Slightly wider still than the Gumby headstock, the term “paddle-shaped headstock” had never been more appropriate—it quite literally looks like a kayak paddle.

Where the curves and angles had been softened on the Gumby headstock, they were sharpened and accentuated on the new paddle headstock. The overall profile was much closer to the old vintage shape—just quite a bit wider. And pointier.

Ironically, the paddle headstock looks more like the claymation Mr. Gumby than the so-called Gumby headstock does.

By early 1985, the paddle headstock had replaced both the vintage and Gumby headstocks on all modern 6-string production models. Vintage and reissue models, however, retained the vintage headstock, paired with Schaller tuners that somewhat resembled the old Kluson Deluxes.

The paddle would last until 2007, when the vintage headstock returned—with the same Schaller M6 Minis. If you wonder how they suddenly fit, my guess is that they probably had all along.

This next bit is pure supposition, but it’s speculation that makes a lot of sense.

Rickenbacker began transitioning to CNC manufacturing in 1996. Once a computer is drilling tuner holes, they’re going to be in exactly the same place, every time.

That was not the case in 1971. Those holes were still drilled by hand. And they could…wander. The larger Grover bushings didn’t leave much room for error, so some extra width was added to the headstock to give it a little wiggle room.

And even then, it still wasn’t always enough.

If that picture looks like the truss rod cover is sitting on top of the B string bushing trim ring and touching the G string’s, that’s because it is.

The truss rod cover clears the B string bushing trim ring on this one, but is sitting on top of the G string’s.

These are not isolated incidents. I searched for “1973 360 6-string” in the Rickenbacker register and these are literally the first two guitars I clicked on.

“Well surely they got better over time,” you may be saying. Well, here’s a random 1983 360 I clicked on. You tell me.

The point is this: the problem wasn’t really the size of the headstock. It was actually the inconsistency of the manufacturing process.

And so when the paddle headstock was being developed, it’s not hard to imagine somebody looking at the continuing clearance issues and saying “well the Gumby isn’t quite big enough, so maybe we should go a little bit bigger.”

But once CNC manufacturing became the norm, that variability dropped to almost nonexistent. And so at some point Rickenbacker probably came to two realizations. First, they didn’t actually need all that extra space. And second, they could save a little money by using less wood on the headstock wings. The rest is history.

Remember, that’s just speculation. But it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?

The paddle headstock era officially ran from late 1984 to early 2007. And they’re pretty divisive today. Vintage purists turn up their noses at them. Players who came of age in the MTV 120 Minutes era think that’s simply what a Rickenbacker looks like.

But love it or hate it, the paddle headstock is one of the easiest ways to date a modern guitar at a glance. And now that you know what you’re looking for, you’ll probably start spotting them everywhere.

Want to learn more about…everything else? Go down a rabbit hole of your choosing in the Rickenbacker101 archive:

But I’d argue that in the burgeoning Southern California guitar industry of the late 1940s through the 1960s it was more like one to two degrees of separation at most.

As you research that period, it sure seems like everyone knew everyone. Engineers moved between companies. Factory workers followed former bosses. Designers borrowed ideas from old colleagues. Pull on almost any thread and before long you find yourself connected to half a dozen familiar names.

Take F.C. Hall and Leo Fender. Hall got his start in the guitar business as Fender’s sole distributor, and was even a part owner of Fender before realizing the real money was in controlling both manufacturing and distribution. So he bought his own guitar company.

Or Paul Barth. Barth helped George Beauchamp invent the horseshoe pickup. He was a founder and partial owner of Ro-Pat-In, Rickenbacker’s predecessor, stayed on as shop manager at Rickenbacker after Hall bought the company, hired Roger Rossmeisl—whose apprentice was Semie Moseley—and eventually left to build guitars for Magnatone at Paul Bigsby’s recommendation.

So while it may seem strange at first that Forrest White—the man who ran Fender’s factory during its golden years—had not one stint at Rickenbacker but two, in this context it makes perfect sense.

White started his career in the 1940s as an industrial engineer at Goodyear Aircraft in Ohio. A guitarist himself, he encountered his first Fender steel guitar and amplifier around 1948 or 1949 and was so impressed that when he visited California a year or so later he looked up Leo just to pay his compliments.

White moved to California in 1951, and struck up a friendship with Leo. At lunch one day in early 1954, Leo bemoaned the state of his business—demand was strong, but the plant was so poorly run he couldn’t keep up and was in real danger of going under. He asked White if he’d come and take a look at things and see if he could fix them.

White streamlined the processes, instituted production and quality control systems, and oversaw the growth of the workforce from a staff of about 40 to nearly 800 by the time of the sale to CBS in 1965. Over that time, he became Leo’s right-hand man—even though the two had their differences from time to time.

White stayed with Fender after the sale, but was not pleased with the cost-cutting changes CBS made. The planned launch of a solid-state amplifier line in 1966 that he deemed not up to Fender standards appears to have been the last straw, and he left Fender somewhere around late 1966/early 1967.

I have seen it mentioned in a few places that White did not get along especially well with Roger Rossmeisl (click to learn more), who had joined Fender after leaving Rickenbacker in 1962, but cannot say for certain whether it is true. I can say that it would not surprise me at all—Rossmeisl’s free-flowing style of work does not seem like it would have meshed well with White’s very structured approach.

White left California for a few years to work for Chicago Musical Instruments’ (Gibson’s parent company) Lowrey Organs division, but returned to California in 1970, where F.C. Hall hired him as a consultant to help turn around a struggling Rickenbacker.

Like I said, everybody knew everybody.

White arrived at Rickenbacker during the lowest point of the Hall family’s ownership of the company—guitar sales had absolutely cratered, while the 4001 bass (click to learn more) had not yet exploded in popularity. Rickenbacker was trying to make incremental changes to stimulate demand, but it was clear something drastic was needed. Who better to come up with something new than Leo Fender’s right-hand man?

White promptly sketched out a double-cutaway, vaguely Telecaster-ish design with a bolt-on neck—something Rickenbacker had never done before. While the very first prototype had a Fender-style six-in-line headstock, subsequent iterations would feature a traditional Rickenbacker paddle shape.

Four prototypes would be produced and shown at the 1971 NAMM Show: the 430 guitar and 3000 bass, and the double-bound deluxe (click to learn more) 470 and 3001. Both basses featured a 30.5” short scale.

Both the guitar and bass received new Fender-style single-coil pickups and redesigned bridges with Gibson Tune-o-matic-style thumbwheels for height adjustment.

Ironically, this proved to be a good enough idea that aftermarket suppliers like Winfield Vintage offer similar guitar bridges today, while Rickenbacker itself has stuck with its fiddly four-screw height-adjustment system.

While these 1971 prototypes would not make it into production, the silhouette should look familiar, as it would reappear in several different guises over the next fifteen or so years.

White’s other 1971 prototype, however, didn’t impress Hall much. But it introduced a design feature White would take with him to his next business venture—and eventually trademark.

White’s 3+1 headstock design would, of course, go on to become a defining feature of the Music Man StingRay bass. But on a Rickenbacker? It was a bit too much. Especially given that the “pointy Telecaster” body it was attached to also failed to inspire.

Ward Deaton had managed the Rickenbacker factory since 1958, when he replaced Paul Barth, and ran it with a pretty firm hand. Put two strong personalities with very different ideas about how to run a factory together, and it comes as no surprise that numerous accounts exist of him and White butting heads. That—along with seeing none of his designs go into production—likely played a role in White’s 1972 departure.

Well, that plus the fact White had begun collaborating with former Fender salesman Tom Walker—and a silent partner with the initials L.F. who still had a couple of years left on his non-compete clause—on a venture that would go on to become Music Man. But we’ll come back to that a little later.

But just because White had moved on from Rickenbacker didn’t mean his influence—most notably that double-cutaway design—had faded completely. John Hall was clearly a fan, and it would reappear several times over the years.

The first appearance would be in another prototype, 1973’s System 490.

The System 490’s party trick was interchangeable loaded pickguards with different pickup configurations. The picture above shows a double-humbucker module—the same humbuckers that would officially debut on the 481 in 1974—but there also appears to have been a “Telecaster” module as well as a standard Rickenbacker Higain module. You’ll also note that the 490 uses the same thumb wheel bridge from White’s earlier prototypes.

The System 490 was a young John Hall’s brainchild, and he blames Ward Deaton for killing it, arguing that some lingering animosity toward White was at least partially responsible.

As that was happening, demand for the 4001 was exploding. Rickenbacker was increasingly becoming a bass company, not a guitar company, and they didn’t have an entry level offering. Yes, they had the single-pickup 4000 (click to learn more), but that still utilized labor-intensive through-neck construction. They needed a cheaper instrument to build if they wanted to capture more of the market.

Luckily, White had left them an incredibly versatile—and inexpensive—bolt-on neck design. And with a few modifications, White’s basic double-cutaway design was pressed into service on two models: the 3000 and 3001 (click to learn more). Even Deaton couldn’t argue with the logic.

There were two major differences between 1974’s production short-scale 3000 and White’s 1971 prototype. The first was the pickup. Instead of White’s Fender-style single-coil, a new pickup—referred to as a “ultra-high gain single coil humbucker” (click to learn more)—was designed by lead amp designer George Cole. The second was the bridge. For simplicity’s sake, the standard 4000 Series bass bridge was employed.

For the standard-scale 3001, the body was stretched slightly, and more complex electronics with two dynamic tone controls were added. The same pickup and bridge found on the 3000 were also utilized on the 3001.

And because that White double-cutaway design was the gift that kept on giving, it finally got a production guitar model in 1975 with the entry-level 430 (click to learn more).

The 430 was clearly engineered to a price—even down to replacing the stock Higain pickups’ metal case with plastic and a matte finish that didn’t require hours of buffing to achieve a high gloss. Apart from the plastic pickup cases, all of the other parts were off-the-shelf.

The 430 only lasted two years, ending production in 1976. The 3000 and 3001 survived until 1979. So that’s the end of the Forrest White and Rickenbacker story, right?

Well, before we answer that question, let’s return to what White was doing in the meantime. Music Man’s first product entered production in 1974: the Sixty-Five amp, a hybrid tube-and-solid-state amplifier designed by Walker and the silent partner who must not be named.

But Leo’s non-compete ended in 1975, and he promptly set up a new company, CLF Research, and established a factory to build guitars for Music Man. The first two models—the StingRay 1 guitar and StingRay bass—were designed with input from all three partners: Leo, Walker, and White.

Under the arrangement, CLF built the guitars and delivered them to Music Man, where Walker and White handled the amplifiers. Quality problems with CLF led to growing animosity between Leo and Walker and White, and by 1979 the relationship had deteriorated to the point that the two companies severed ties.

Ironically, what the notoriously bad-at-business Leo Fender really needed was a Forrest White to run the CLF Research factory.

Walker and White soldiered on without Leo, who formed G&L guitars with George Fullerton in the aftermath. Music Man guitar production was handed over to Grover Jackson.

Once again, everybody knew everybody.

But despite strong sales, Music Man always struggled financially. On the brink of bankruptcy yet again, Walker and White were forced to sell Music Man to Ernie Ball in early 1984.

Which left White looking for a job again.

John Hall had developed a passion for computing in college, and spent much of the early to mid-1970s installing state-of-the-art computer systems at Rickenbacker. He left the company in 1979 to establish his own software company, but returned in 1981 as F.C. began a multi-year battle with cancer.

F.C. began talking about selling the company, and at first John worked with the prospective buyers to help them understand the value and potential the company held. But at some point in that process, he realized he didn’t want to help his dad sell the company—he wanted to buy it himself. And in 1984 he somehow scraped the money together to do just that.

The younger Hall had lots of ideas about how to do things differently—how to make the company more relevant. But to make them happen, he needed a strong right-hand man. Who better than Forrest White?

Hall held immense respect for White, and did not share all of his father’s high regard for Ward Deaton—a fact Deaton was well aware of. As soon as the employees were made aware of the impending transfer of ownership, Deaton announced his departure. And so Forrest White was hired by Rickenbacker once again—this time as factory manager.

The timing of the younger Hall’s purchase couldn’t have been better. Thanks to the college-radio-fueled rise of jangle pop, Rickenbackers were suddenly cool again and demand from an entirely new demographic surged.

At the same time, Hall was introducing the first mostly accurate reproductions of classic models, re-engaging the existing customer base.

On top of that, Hall and White were improving outdated designs and practices as they went. White completely redesigned the standard guitar bridge for the first time since the 1950s, replacing the aging lock-nut system with much easier-to-manage retaining springs.

Still no thumbwheels, though.

White also oversaw the replacement of the old hairpin truss rods (click to learn more) with dual modern single action rods. And while one can make the argument that the hairpins were a better solution, their unique design and function remain poorly understood by the majority of players and was therefore likely a net negative in the marketplace.

And of course, White’s good old double-cutaway design made yet another appearance with the introduction of the 200 Series (click to learn more) of guitars and basses in late 1984.

Just like the original 1971 prototypes, the 200 Series consisted of two basses and two guitars—with a standard and deluxe model for each.

But once again, the White-designed models would outlive White’s tenure with Rickenbacker.

John Hall says that something had changed in White. The stress of keeping Music Man afloat—and ultimately failing. The damage the Music Man experience had done to his relationship with Leo Fender. Bitterness over not being asked to be a part of G&L with his old friends Leo and George Fullerton. Some health scares along the way. It had all taken a toll. He was just a changed man.

It came to a head, literally, with White throwing a punch at longtime wood shop manager Dick Burke. The plant’s most senior employee, Dick Burke had designed the 12-string headstock, the New Style 360, the R tailpiece, and so much more. If any one person was the heart of the Rickenbacker plant, it was Dick Burke. And White hit him for telling him “that’s not how we do things here.”

Hall had no choice but to fire White. As White was someone he considered both a friend and a mentor, it could not have been an easy thing to do, but he did. And while the 200 Series guitars would last until 1995, the second and final Forrest White stint at Rickenbacker came to an end.

In 1994 White would publish a memoir of his time with Fender, Fender: The Inside Story. It’s clear reading that book that time had not healed old wounds—and equally clear how much those years at Fender had meant to him. He just never seemed able to recreate that golden period.

Forrest White died later that same year, but his legacy carries on in Fender, Music Man, and Rickenbacker guitars that never carried his name on the headstock—and perhaps that’s fitting. Forrest White’s greatest contributions were almost always behind the scenes.

And of course, he knew everybody.

If you enjoyed this piece on Forrest White and Rickenbacker, you’ll probably enjoy this one on Roger Rossmeisl:

In August 2013, Rickenbacker started teasing something special for 2014.

By the end of its 2000 to 2006 run, collectors were trying their best to come up with the most unique Color of the Year (click to learn more) order possible. Whatever model you can think of, there’s probably at least one example out there somewhere wearing a later Color of the Year finish.

So the prospect of a new Color of the Year after a seven-year absence immediately set the collector community abuzz. But shortly before the official NAMM 2014 unveiling, John Hall made it clear everyone had been barking up the wrong tree.

“Well, John, maybe because you teased a ‘2014 Color of the Year,’” was the main response…followed almost immediately by even more speculation about what “it” actually was.

On the first day of NAMM 2014, we finally got our answer.

Note especially the “available 2014 only” part. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan—and occasionally that’s a very good thing. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

So what exactly is the W Series? Well, here’s how Rickenbacker described the new line in the original press release:

We’ve always been careful not to change much to the formulas that make our guitars and basses iconic in sound and design. For this reason, we rarely bring anything new to market. However, this year we just couldn’t resist introducing the W Series of walnut made designs of our traditional 330, 360 and 4003 models.

This is a natural spin on our classic models. These walnut Rickenbackers boast the same full, rich and warm sounds that we’re known for, while adding the strength and natural character of walnut polished with an oil finish. The full model lineup for the W Series includes the 330, 330/12, 360, 360/12 and 4003. All are outfitted with Maple necks. The entire line is made from top quality wood to deliver thorough excellence.

At launch, the lineup included a 330W, 330/12W, 360W, 360/12W, and 4003W. Apart from the different woods and oil-rubbed finish—and the black fretboard dots on the two 330 models—all other specs and features were identical to their maple brethren.

As were the prices. While walnut can cost significantly more per board foot than maple, the incremental material cost was offset by the much less labor-intensive oil-rubbed finish, allowing the W Series guitars to debut at the same price points as their maple counterparts.

These, of course, weren’t the first walnut-bodied Rickenbackers. Walnut had first appeared on the 650 Dakota in 1992, followed closely by the 650 Sierra and 4004 Cheyenne (click to learn more) in 1993.

While the 650 and 4004 were unapologetically modern Rickenbackers, 1995’s 380L Laguna (click to learn more) looked much closer to a “traditional” 360—albeit with plenty of modern touches of its own.

But by 2009, the last production walnut guitar had rolled off the line. That said, hints of what was to come began to appear, with walnut-bodied 4003 experiments surfacing as early as 2011.

Still, nobody was expecting a full line of walnut bodied guitars, and the response caught even Rickenbacker a little off guard. Here’s what John Hall had to say only a few weeks after the NAMM show.

Remember: less than a month earlier Rickenbacker was describing these guitars as a 2014-only offering. And here Hall was already openly considering adding them permanently to the lineup.

As it happened, sell-through was every bit as strong as sell-in, and so that’s exactly what happened. The W Series became a permanent part of the lineup—and the line itself even expanded. A 4003SW had not been part of the original lineup, but one was added in early 2015.

The 4003SW wouldn’t be the only model added over the years. When the 5-string 4003S/5 joined the lineup in 2019, it received a walnut version as well.

The same held true with 2025’s 4030S (click to learn more), which also received a walnut counterpart.

So what exactly is the appeal? What transformed a planned one-year run into a permanent fixture in the Rickenbacker catalog?

I think it comes down to two things. First is the weight. Walnut is roughly 15–20% lighter than maple, and on a 4003, for example, that can easily translate into a one pound difference between the walnut and maple versions.

Second is the feel. Glossy finished fingerboards have been a Rickenbacker trademark since 1959—but they’ve also always been one of the brand’s more polarizing features.

This is especially true on basses. If we’re being frank, Rickenbacker basses tend to attract a broader audience than the company’s guitars and, as such, have a larger potential customer base. An unfinished board on a Rickenbacker bass, therefore, significantly increases the potential buyer pool.

That’s not to say the same doesn’t hold true for guitars, but the effect is even more pronounced for basses—which is why every new bass model introduced since the W Series joined the lineup has also received a walnut version with an unfinished board.

So a lighter guitar with a feel many players actually prefer. What’s not to like?

As already mentioned, all other specs and features on the W Series guitars are identical to the “normal” maple versions. So as tuners, knobs, pickups, and other appointments have changed on those guitars, so too have they on the W Series guitars—including 2023’s shift from 24 to 21-fret necks on the 330 and 360.

One change that obviously didn’t carry over was 2021-22’s experiment with unfinished fingerboards (click to learn more) on all legacy models. Turns out, the W Series was enough to satisfy that demand.

The W Series guitars have occasionally appeared incognito in places you might not expect. Many—though not all—special run models (click to learn more) with maple fingerboards are actually W Series guitars hiding beneath a custom color.

In the end, the W Series succeeded because it managed to thread a needle that had proven very difficult for Rickenbacker up to that point: guitars that offered something genuinely different without fundamentally changing what made them Rickenbackers in the first place.

Lighter weight. A different feel. A slightly different aesthetic. But underneath it all, still unmistakably the same guitars and basses players already knew.

It gave the Rickenbacker-curious an excuse to give one a shot—and continues to convince a number of them to stick around.

All in all, not too shabby for an idea that was supposed to only last a year.

Technically, that’s true. But what if I told you that Purpleburst guitars exist anyway. Because they do—under a very specific set of circumstances. Let’s get into it.

We already know that the finish on most Rickenbackers made prior to 2009 can yellow from exposure to sunlight. We may use phrases like “ambered Fireglo” or “mellowed Mapleglo” or “creamy White” to make this seem like a desirable thing—and aesthetically it often is—but let’s not pretend that this was the plan. It’s simply a byproduct of time, UV exposure, and the materials that were available at the time.

But here’s the important distinction: in most cases it’s not actually the color coat itself that is changing. It’s the clearcoat on top. If you could somehow peel that clearcoat away, the finish underneath would still be—more or less—as vibrant as the day it left the spray booth. Rickenbacker’s color coats have historically proven to be quite stable.

Usually. But let’s face it: if you stick anything in the sun long enough, it’s going to fade. And one Rickenbacker finish is more prone to that than any other.

This is Blueburst. The 2005 Color of the Year (click to learn more), Blueburst is a striking dark-to-light blue sunburst and remains one of the more sought-after COTY finishes today, carrying a significant price premium over “standard” finishes—and most other COTY finishes as well.

But sometimes—under the right conditions—it can become…Purpleburst?

Now we’re all immediately familiar with what we’re seeing here. One of the most famous electric guitars in the world—the 1958-1959 Gibson Les Paul—does exactly the same thing. After years of UV exposure, a finish that left the factory looking like this…

…can wind up looking like this:

But what’s actually happening here? On the Gibsons, the red aniline dye they used was—unknown to them at the time—extremely UV sensitive. That means sunlight slowly breaks down the red pigment over time. The longer the exposure, the more the red disappears, leaving behind the yellow and amber tones underneath.

Rickenbacker is famously tight-lipped about the specifics of their color formulas—as is their right—but it’s clear that something similar happened with whatever pigment they chose for Blueburst.

For reference’s sake, remember the “Purpleburst” 330 we just looked at? Here’s what the back of that same guitar looks like:

Yep. Same guitar. Don’t believe me? Let’s take the tailpiece off.

That dark blue “R” shadow is (much closer to) the original finish color, protected from years of UV exposure. If that doesn’t demonstrate exactly what a lot of sunlight can do to a Blueburst finish, nothing will.

But just so you don’t think that’s a one-off, here’s another front-and-back comparison, this time from a 2008 360.

Or how about a 2007 620 that got it front and back?

Or even a 2008 4004 Cheyenne II:

The point is this: this isn’t a one-off phenomenon.

Here’s the good news: this appears to take a lot of UV exposure to occur. We’re talking “hanging on the wall across from a big window for years” levels of exposure. And consequently, examples like this are few and far between. But they do exist.

Will you find other sun-bleached finishes on Rickenbacker guitars? Sure. Like I said, stick anything in the sun long enough and it will fade. But no other finish is as prone to fading as Blueburst, and as much sunlight as it takes to turn those guitars purple, I can’t even imagine how much it would take to turn a Jetglo guitar gray!

Fun fact, though: UV exposure can turn a Jetglo guitar green.

Well…kind of. The same yellowed topcoat that can turn White into “Cream” can turn Jetglo green…in direct sunlight. Take it back inside and it’s Jetglo again.

If you want a cheaper Blueburst—or if you actually like the Purpleburst effect—well, this is a good way to go. And while both the 330 and 360 pictured above are on Reverb as of this writing, Purplebursts are in fact quite rare. Like I said, it takes years of sunlight to achieve this effect.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I probably wouldn’t buy a Blueburst guitar sight unseen.

If you enjoyed this exploration of Purpleburst guitars, you might enjoy this discussion on Glueglo.

The answer, of course, is yes. They were all of those things at once—and that’s precisely what makes them so fascinating. So let’s talk about the Lightshow guitars.

But first, a little context. By the late 1960s, the British Invasion wave that had carried Rickenbacker through the mid-’60s was no longer cresting—it was receding. The Beatles had stopped touring. The Byrds had evolved. And the chiming sound of a Rickenbacker through an AC-30 was being crowded out by the snarl of a ‘59 Burst plugged into an overdriven Marshall stack. The formula that worked only a few years before was no longer enough. Something had to change if the company was going to survive.

And so we enter Rickenbacker’s “transitional era” (click to learn more)—a period largely defined not by sweeping reinvention but by incremental adjustments, cautious experiments, and attempts to find stable ground in a rapidly shifting market.

But the Lightshow guitars were decidedly not that. They weren’t a cautious step forward—they were a cannonball into the deep end.

And really, what did they have to lose?

So let’s define what the Lightshow guitars were and how they worked.

First off, the idea didn’t originate inside Rickenbacker.

Frank Zappa once told a great story about how some of the best and most original music came from an era when record labels were run by “old guys with cigars” who basically shrugged and said “I dunno…maybe somebody will buy it?”

I always think of that story when it comes to the Lightshow guitars, with F.C. Hall cast in the role of the cigar-chomping executive willing to greenlight something completely ridiculous just because it was interesting.

The idea was brought to Rickenbacker by Stephen F. Woodman and Marshall Arm—two figures I have been able to find remarkably little information about beyond their connection to the project itself.

Their original pitch was to incorporate the technology behind the Lightshow guitars into the Transonic amplifier line. But somewhere along the way the concept migrated from amplifiers to guitars.

Sources consistently say they licensed the concept to Rickenbacker for development, and period literature referred to the technology as patented—and the 331’s pickguard is actually marked “Pat Pending”. But despite a lengthy search, I haven’t been able to locate a corresponding patent filing or issued patent tied directly to the Lightshow guitars.

But the concept itself—of marrying music and color—actually dates back further than the psychedelic era. Much further back, in fact.

In 1725, French Jesuit monk Louis Bertrand Castro designed what he called the “Ocular Harpsichord”: a mechanical instrument that paired notes with color. Behind the keyboard sat 60 colored glass panes concealed by small curtains, each of which would rise when its corresponding key was struck.

This was the first of the “color organs”, an idea that was dramatically expanded upon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when electricity made large-scale color projection possible.

By the mid-1920s, Hungarian composer Alexander László was touring Europe with an elaborate electric color organ system and publishing works such as Color-Light-Music, which explored the relationship between sound, light, and human perception.

The shift from mechanical systems to electronic methods of generating colors from music would occur in the mid-1960s, and these newer devices became more commonly known as “light organs”—although you will still see the color organ term.

At their core, light organs used electronic circuitry to divide an audio signal into separate frequency bands. Different portions of the sound spectrum would then trigger different colored lamps, causing the lights to pulse and change in response to the music being played.

If that sounds a lot like what a Lightshow guitar does, that’s because it is. At its core, the Lightshow is really just a light organ stuffed inside a guitar body.

Which probably explains the apparent lack of any Lightshow-related patents—Woodman and Arm simply dreamt up a novel new application for existing technology.

So let’s talk about the guitar itself.

The first prototype was built in July 1970. Factory invoices referred to it as the “Xmas Tree Special,” which feels pretty appropriate in hindsight.

A standard Rickenbacker 330 (click to learn more) served as the starting point, but extensive modifications were required to transform the concept into a functioning instrument. Let’s start with the finished product and work our way through exactly what was changed.

Just like a standard 330, the top and sides of the 331—as the guitar was officially designated—began as a solid two-piece body blank. But the 331 was about a half an inch thicker overall than the 330—around 2” versus the 330’s 1 1/2”—to allow room for the internal electronics.

On a conventional 330, the body blank is routed out from the rear, and then sealed with a solid back panel to create the semi-hollow construction. Both the top and the back are roughly 1/4” thick.

The 331 followed the same basic approach, but with one major difference: much of the “top” was hollowed completely through. Only a solid center section was left intact to provide mounting points for the pickups and the bridge.

You’ll also notice that the 331 does not have the signature “tailpiece ramp” found on virtually every other full-size semi-hollowbodied Rickenbacker. This wasn’t an aesthetic choice—the ramp simply consumed too much real estate that the electronics package required.

Most of the top was covered with two mirror-image pickguards. But these weren’t conventional guards. Each assembly was actually made up of two layers: a clear Plexiglas top layer and a thin backing sheet of Rowlux—a lenticular film that produced a shifting moiré effect as light passed through it.

The guitar electronics themselves were fairly standard for the era: transitional Higains (click to learn more) with their threaded polepieces, the familiar 5 knob/1 switch control layout, and—somewhat unusually for a 330-derived instrument—Rick-O-Sound stereo wiring (click to learn more).

Also unusual for a 330-derived guitar, the 24-fret fingerboard was bound—although the guitar retained dot inlays rather than the triangle inlays (click to learn more) usually paired with bound necks.

Fun fact: 330 sales were so low during this period that the handful that were built around the same time simply used the 331’s bound fingerboard for simplicity’s sake. We highlight one such example here: Short Takes: 1971 330 with Bound Neck.

But then there was all the other stuff. Because the 331 wasn’t just a guitar—it also had to function as a self-contained light organ.

It actually took two tries. Which is to say there were two distinct versions of the 331’s electronics package—a first, rudimentary version, and a far more sophisticated second design.

All of the photos of 331 internals we’ve seen so far have shown the first version of the electronics package that entered production in March 1971. And from those photos, it’s obvious that the setup was fairly rudimentary…six lights arranged in a straight line on the bass side, and three on the treble side.

The entire assembly was hand wired—even the bayonet bulbs themselves were hardwired directly into the system. An additional knob by the tailpiece controlled light intensity, and the whole setup required an external transformer for power, connected to a separate input mounted below the jack plate.

One feature that has been modified on the first-generation example shown above is the lightbulbs themselves. The bulbs in that guitar have been painted, but as stock the bulbs were clear and fitted with colored, cone-shaped diffusers, as seen below.

The second version of the electronics package appeared in August 1971 and was clearly a much more thought out system. For starters, printed circuit boards replaced the hand-wired assemblies used in the original design.

It had more lights, too: still six on the bass side, but now five on the treble side. And instead of being arranged in straight lines, the lights were arranged to more closely follow the contours of the body.

The colored diffusers were also replaced with colored bulbs, and in a major serviceability upgrade the bulbs were now fitted into sockets—meaning they could finally be replaced without breaking out the soldering iron.

Hidden in the middle of the guitar is one of the most important parts of the whole assembly: a heat sink—because stuffing a light organ inside a semi-hollow guitar body turns out to generate a fair amount of heat. This nondescript bent metal panel was designed to absorb and dissipate as much of that heat as possible.

So after all that…did it actually work?

It did indeed. This video from Elderly Instruments gives you a good idea of what it all looked like:

But that’s not the really important question. Did it sell?

Well, no. Not really. The guitar was clearly designed with the psychedelic ‘60s in mind, but by the time the 331 hit the market in 1971, psychedelia had mostly passed its sell-by date.

Weird? Sure. Cool? To some, sure. Compelling enough to justify a $140 upcharge over a standard 330—almost $1,150 today? Not really.

Plus, it was probably kind of a pain to build. That extra $140 likely didn’t generate much extra profit once all the extra parts and labor required to put it all together were factored in.

And so the 331 ended up with one of the shortest production runs in Rickenbacker history: preproduction models in late 1970, first production batch in March 1971, and last production batch January 1972. Just over a year.

Although, to be fair, it remained on the price list through 1975. But during the F.C. Hall era that can usually be interpreted as “there was at least one still sitting in the warehouse”—F.C. seemingly operated on the theory of “you can’t sell it if people don’t know you have it”.

But let’s talk about that name: “Lightshow”. Those of you paying close attention may have noticed I have not used it to refer to the 331 itself. And that’s because Rickenbacker never did.

On price lists, in advertisements, in brochures—it was always just “331”. So where did the Lightshow name come from?

I can’t be 100% certain, but I’d be willing to bet it came from this 1971 brochure:

“The Model 331 combines a fine musical instrument with the thrill of a lightshow.”

That’s the first usage of the term I have been able to find. And because collectors know a snappy name when they see one, over time the 331 became the “331 Lightshow”—or simply the “Lightshow”.

You may have also noticed that the title of this article is “The Lightshow Guitars”, plural—and so far I’ve only shown you the 331. While the 331 was the only “official” Lightshow model, it wasn’t the only Lightshow instrument built. Including, as the brochure above proudly states, a “lighted hollow body bass”.

Well, there’s something like five to ten of them out there.

Using the 4005WB (click to learn more) as a foundation, a handful of 4005 Lightshow basses were built in 1971. The major difference between them and the 331 was the pickups. At that point, the only Higain bass pickup in existence was the large bridge unit, so the 4005 Lightshow retained the same toaster pickups used on the standard 4005.

You may reasonably ask if the 4005 Lightshow received its own dedicated PCBs. It did! Don’t make the same mistake I did and assume the guitar below is original. It’s a “Frankenstein” rebuilt from leftover bits.

And if that greenish PCB material looks familiar to you, it should—it’s the exact same material Rickenbacker used for Higain pickup bobbins.

Now you’ll notice I refer to this guitar as the “4005 Lightshow”. It was never an official production model, so it did not get a unique product designation like the 331. Both the Smith and Kelley books (click to learn more) refer to it as the 4005LS, and given that both authors had access to factory records that designation is probably correct.

Oddly enough, however, Smith refers to it as a “Lightshow” and Kelley a “Light Show”. Make of that what you will.

It seems like almost every modern six-string Rickenbacker eventually gets a twelve-string counterpart, so naturally the question becomes was there a 331/12?

Indeed there was, although there are almost certainly fewer of those than there are 4005 Lightshows. Like the 4005LS, the 331/12 was never a production model.

But even that’s not the rarest Lightshow guitar. That would be this one:

That is a one-off three-pickup 341/12 with slanted frets custom built for Roger McGuinn. With Byrd wiring (click to learn more) to boot. It really doesn’t get much weirder than that—although McGuinn has a second 341/12 without the slanted frets.

So perhaps equally as rare, but not nearly as weird.

There’s a truism in the collector world that rarity alone does not necessarily create value. Some things are rare for a reason, and the factors that made them undesirable in the first place haven’t changed.

But sometimes rare does equal valuable, and few Rickenbackers are considered as valuable today as the Lightshow guitars.

So what changed? What makes this slightly ridiculous, perpetually anachronistic instrument so desirable today?

Precisely that, I think. In this age of data science and focus groups and target demographics, the Lightshow guitars are a reminder of a time when cigar-chomping executives were willing to take a chance on something they didn’t fully understand and say, “I dunno…maybe somebody will buy it?”

Plus, silly or not, how cool is it?

If you enjoyed this story on transitional-era weirdness, you’ll probably like this one on slanted frets:

No matter what your answer is, I can guarantee you this: you probably don’t love your favorite model nearly as much as the people who answered “the 4004” love theirs. There are dedicated fan bases, and then there are 4004 people. Those guys scare me a little bit.

And if you’re not one of them, you’ve probably never given the 4004 a second thought. “That’s because you’ve never even played one!” the 4004 crowd is screaming at their screens right now.

Alright guys, relax. Today we’re going to let the rest of the world know what they’re missing—and why they should consider joining you in the “definitely not a cult” 4004 fan club.

So first, some context. Almost from the day John Hall purchased the company from his father in 1984, he tried to build a Rickenbacker that would appeal to the “modern player”. And honestly, that makes sense, right? “Innovate or die” has been a business mantra for decades—and the 1970s and early 1980s had not been particularly kind to Rickenbacker.

Hall’s first attempt, in 1984, was the 200 Series (click to learn more) of guitars and basses. And frankly, for what they were—American-made guitars with some innovative-yet-cost-saving features—they were pretty cool and priced fairly well. I remember seeing ads for them back in the day and thinking that the 250 El Dorado, especially in Jetglo, looked absolutely killer.

Honestly? I still think that.

But here was the problem the 200 Series encountered: as much as Hall wanted to redefine what a Rickenbacker could look or sound like, the market had already more or less decided what a Rickenbacker “was”—and this wasn’t it.

I’m not sure what the sales ambitions for the 200 Series guitars were, but I suspect they were not fully realized. In the years following the 200 Series launch, demand for Rickenbacker’s legacy products surged—driven both by their growing popularity among the college radio crowd and by the introduction of vintage reissue models. Whether because of disappointing sales, factory capacity limitations, or some combination of the two, the 200 Series line was discontinued at the end of 1994.

Or maybe it was just pushed out of the way by the new “modern” Rickenbacker that had launched in 1992—the 650.

Hall had clearly learned a key lesson from the 200 Series experience: if you were going to make a modern Rickenbacker, you still needed some recognizable Rickenbacker DNA in the mix.

There was a lot for the modern player to like about the 650 guitars: 24 frets with a scooped neck heel (although first-year production models had a traditional heel), a wider and flatter neck, crunchy HB-1 humbuckers (click to learn more), and an optional Hi-Tek vibrato. And although the cresting wave body (click to learn more) was softened somewhat for player comfort, the guitar was still unmistakably a Rickenbacker.

The same basic philosophy was applied to the 4004 when it appeared the following year in 1993: give modern players what they wanted without building something that no longer felt like a Rickenbacker.

And for a certain type of player, that hit hard.

The 1993 4004 came in two variants. The deluxe (click to learn more) Cheyenne featured gold hardware, walnut body and headstock wings, and an oil-rubbed finish. The standard Laredo featured chrome hardware, maple body and headstock wings, and came in Jetglo only.

Both instruments featured neck-through construction (click to learn more) with a slightly tapered maple fingerboard that was about 2-3mm wider than a 4003’s, Schaller M4 tuners, and a weighty, custom-designed ABM bridge with roller saddles.

Pickups were two HB-1 humbuckers, with the bridge pickup in roughly the same location as on the 4003, and the neck pickup about an inch higher, butted up against the end of the neck. Controls were simplified to a top-mounted master volume, master tone, and three-way mini-toggle selector switch. Both instruments were mono only.

Because there was no pickguard to mount the pickups below as on the 4003, the 4004 borrowed a design element from the 650: shallow, form-fit pickup cavities that allowed the HB-1s to sit slightly recessed into the body.

Even the truss rod cover reflected the new direction: black injection-molded plastic with the raised lettering painted gold on the Cheyenne and silver on the Laredo.

After launch, sales settled into what I’d call the “respectable, but not spectacular” category—typically one to two production batches per year throughout the model’s run. Which actually puts the 4004 in roughly the same category as almost all models except the 330, 360, and 4003. So it performed well enough.

But who was buying them?

That’s an interesting question. From the start, there were two pools of players the 4004 was probably never going to win over. The first was the Rickenbacker diehards—the ones who loved the look and the clank of the 4003 and didn’t want that formula messed with. That’s a relatively small—but still important—piece of the overall bass market, and honestly, it’s fine that they didn’t buy 4004s. Otherwise you’d just be cannibalizing your own product line.

Then there are the players who would never consider a Rickenbacker bass under any circumstances. Maybe they just don’t like the look. Maybe they played one once and hated the neck. Maybe they heard horror stories about the hairpin truss rods (click to learn more) that Rickenbacker hadn’t even used in almost ten years. You’re never going to change their minds.

Luckily, the majority of the market falls somewhere between those two extremes. So who actually ended up liking—and buying—the 4004?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have won over many players who likely otherwise wouldn’t have considered a Rickenbacker. The biggest fans—the scary ones we’ve talked about—were the players who were already predisposed to like Rickenbacker basses, but wanted one that did more.

The good news is that many of those players probably would have gone elsewhere to get that “more”. So it was additive volume—but only in the one to two production batches a year range. Not a failure—remember, respectable but not spectacular—but not exactly a breakout hit either.

So what exactly was the “more” the 4004 provided? Why do 4004 fans love them so much?

Well, the wider fretboard is certainly a plus for some. The modern-yet-traditional looks help too. But more than anything else, what people seem to love is the range of sounds you can get out of a 4004.

The key ingredient that sets the 4004 apart from the 4003 is the HB-1 pickups. Thanks to their dual-blade humbucking design, they’re hotter, fatter, and warmer than traditional Rickenbacker single-coils. And quieter to boot.

The result is a bass capable of sounds a 4003 simply can’t produce. Ironically, the one thing the 4004 struggles to deliver is the classic Rickenbacker clank—although many players report you can get close with an external treble booster.

So a Rickenbacker bass that does non-Rickenbacker things sounds like a pretty good idea. But the first iterations of the 4004 came in a fairly plain wrapper, and sales were relatively modest when compared to what would later come.

What ultimately pushed the model from “useful modern bass” to full-on cult favorite was the fact that the 4004 got really pretty over the course of its run.

The first change to the 4004 was relatively minor. In 1995, all “standard” Rickenbacker finishes became available on the Laredo. The days of “any color you want, as long as it’s black” were finally over.

And that was a step in the right direction. But 1999 is when the truly major changes started. They were substantial enough that the Cheyenne was renamed the Cheyenne II to reflect the redesign. In collector-speak, you’ll usually see the original walnut Cheyenne referred to as the Ci, and the revised version as the Cii.

First, the fingerboard changed from maple to Bubinga. Second, the pickups were both moved about an inch closer to the bridge. That change—which slightly altered the 4004’s warm tone—proved less popular with players, but any complaints were more than outweighed by the final revision: gorgeous flamed maple caps for the Cheyenne’s walnut wings.

Now that’s what I call a glow-up.

In 2000 the Cheyenne II’s “maple cap on walnut wings” construction changed to a maple-walnut-maple sandwich. It also gained new Cheyenne II-exclusive finishes specifically chosen to show off all that flamed maple: Trans Red, Trans Green, and Trans Blue.

2004 saw the introduction of a 5-string Cheyenne II. The 4004 5-stringer featured an almost impossibly wide neck and another custom bridge from ABM. Because of the wide neck and string spacing, the HB-1 pickup’s sensing range was simply too narrow to cover all five strings so an HB-2 was used in its place.

So what, you may ask, is an HB-2—and how does it differ from the HB-1? That’s a great question with a surprisingly simple answer: it’s the same pickup with a different case.

The HB humbucking pickup platform was originally designed for the 381JK John Kay Signature Limited Edition (click to learn more) guitar. Ironically, the HB-2 version appeared in production first, on the 200 Series guitars.

The HB-1 is packaged inside the metal case used on Higains, which effectively focuses and limits the edges of the pickup’s magnetic field. The HB-2’s plastic housing doesn’t do that, allowing for a slightly wider sensing range. Were the B and G strings still a little weak on the 5-string 4004 anyway? You bet.

The 5-string Cheyenne never made it to the official price list, and production was limited to only a handful of 2004 examples.

2005 saw the pickups return to their original positions—a welcome change in many players’ eyes. But the next major revision to the 4004 was not one of choice.

In mid-2007, Klaus Mueller, the owner of German parts company ABM—who had designed and supplied the 4004 bridge—unexpectedly passed away. A period of uncertainty about the company’s future followed, and Rickenbacker was forced to find a new supplier.

Consequently, in 2008 a Schaller bridge replaced the ABM unit. The bridge was “fine”—and certainly still better than the 4003’s bridge that had remained essentially unchanged since its introduction in 1963—but most players (and even John Hall himself) didn’t think it was quite as good as the ABM bridge it replaced.

There’s a term you hear thrown around a lot these days: the “enshittification” of products. Little cost-cutting measures, subtle spec changes, and feature reductions that slowly pile up until the thing no longer feels quite as good as it did at its peak.

That term feels harsh in this context, but the underlying principle applies. The flame on the maple wings gradually became less and less dramatic—and around 2006 it disappeared from the neck-through section entirely. We’ve already talked about the switch to the Schaller bridge.

And then came the change that hurt the most. In late 2009, the 4004’s wider neck—one of the instrument’s defining features from the very beginning—was replaced with the same narrower two-piece blank used on the 4003.

To be fair, the Schaller bridge couldn’t provide the wider string spacing the older ABM unit was designed to deliver, so much of the extra neck width was effectively wasted. But still.

Don’t get me wrong—this didn’t kill the model. Demand remained more or less exactly where it had always been. And honestly, maybe the changes were a net positive overall—not everybody liked the wider neck.

But today, if you ask those people I’m a little afraid of, they’ll tell you that peak 4004 had the wider neck and the ABM bridge.

The 4004 would remain effectively unchanged until its discontinuation in 2016. Which was not spurred by any precipitous collapse in demand. In both 2013 and 2016, special Laredo runs in Snowglo sold out almost immediately, and remain highly collectible today.

But as the last surviving example of a younger John Hall’s attempts to introduce “modern” models into the Rickenbacker lineup, the 4004 simply no longer fit the company’s broader product strategy. The final examples rolled off the line in July, 2017.

We’ve left out one important piece of the 4004 story: the 4004LK Lemmy Kilmister Signature Limited Edition. Based on the original walnut Cheyenne, the 4004LK was easily the most over-the-top of all the Signature Limited Edition models.

Built to Motörhead bassist Lemmy Kilmister’s specifications, the 4004LK featured hand-carved acorn and oak leaf motifs on the body wings, checkered binding, star inlays, gold hardware, and three HB-1 pickups. Of the design, John Hall once said:

I told Lemmy that it was a bit over the top, gilding the lily, sorta like a hooker overloaded with lace and gold jewelry.

He said "And that's bad, how?"

Sixty were produced between 2001 and 2006.

The 4004 occupies an odd place in Rickenbacker history. It was never a blockbuster. It never defined the brand the way the 4003 did. And for most of its life, it quietly sold in small but steady numbers, far away from the spotlight.

But the people who got the 4004 really got it.

To them, it was the perfect middle ground: unmistakably a Rickenbacker, but smoother, hotter, cleaner, prettier, and more versatile than your everyday 4001 or 4003.

And once you learn more about the 4004, you start to understand why 4004 owners talk about them the way they do. They’re probably wrong about it being the best Rickenbacker bass ever made—but don’t you dare say that to their faces.

UK distributor Rose Morris watched Beatlemania sweep across Britain in mid-to-late 1963, and moved quickly to capitalize on it. By the end of year they had secured exclusive UK distribution rights for Rickenbacker, and placed an enormous opening order for 300 guitars.

Rickenbacker spent most of the first half of 1964 filling that order, just in time for Beatlemania to explode in the United States as well. And as if demand wasn’t already high enough, Rickenbacker themselves handed another Beatle what would become one of the most famous guitars in company history: George Harrison’s 1963 360/12 prototype. Since a 12-string model hadn’t been part of their original order, Rose Morris quickly expanded their order to include one of those too.

Gaining those distribution rights had been a smart move: Rose Morris sold through several of the more popular models almost immediately, so they ordered still more. By the end of 1964, Rickenbacker had produced around 650 guitars for Rose Morris, with still more orders on the books. And while Rickenbacker had dramatically expanded their capacity, the backlog of domestic orders had exploded. Filling the Rose Morris orders had been the top priority.

And so, heading into 1965 Rickenbacker faced a difficult choice: who were they going to disappoint? Rose Morris, or domestic dealers?

Rickenbacker chose to satisfy the domestic demand first.

As 1965 progressed, the flow of guitars to the UK slowed to a trickle. Correspondence from Rose Morris grew more strident as the year stretched on.

Despite that, there was still hunger from Rose Morris for more—and new—guitars, especially the semi-hollowbodied 4005 bass (click to learn more) which launched in late 1965. But by the end of the year, only about 225 guitars had been shipped to the UK.

The first real cracks in the relationship were showing.

F.C. Hall and Rose Morris met at the 1966 NAMM show in Chicago, and as perhaps a gesture of good faith Hall proposed two new models: the 4005 (click to learn more) Roy Morris had been asking for—with an f-hole instead of a slash soundhole, of course—and a similarly f-holed 336/12 6/12 convertible guitar (click to learn more). Both were assigned a Rose Morris part number—3261 for the bass (4005S internal designation), 3262 (365S internal designation) for the guitar—and a purchase order was written.

Still, as 1966 ended, only 100 guitars had made their way across the Atlantic. None of them the 3261 and 3262s that had been ordered in July at the NAMM show.

So in early 1967 Rose Morris took matters into their own hands, and traveled to Japan to find an alternate source. They returned with private label “Shaftesbury” Rickenbacker copies built by Teisco Gen Gakki.

When Hall contacted Rose Morris in June 1967 to inform them the first 25 3261s were finally ready to ship, he was told—probably in not terribly polite terms—words to the effect of “we don’t want them. Cancel all outstanding purchase orders.” And with those words, the Rickenbacker/Rose Morris relationship effectively ended.

The immediate problem Rickenbacker faced was what to do with the 25 weird f-holed 3261 basses they now had on hand. And while the 3262 guitars were still somewhere in the production pipeline when Rose Morris cancelled the order, those needed to find a home as well.

Rickenbacker had turned away many European distributors over the past few years—they were having a hard enough time satisfying Rose Morris—so it didn’t take long to find a buyer: Italian distributor Saporetti and Cappelli. There was just one catch: they’d take the basses as-is, but they didn’t want a 12-string—especially not a 6/12 convertible. Six strings only, please. That’s where this monstrosity comes in:

A “New Style” round-top 360 (click to learn more) with an f-hole is unusual, but not entirely unprecedented—some of the first 360NS prototypes have an f-hole. But this headstock is truly one of a kind.

While we’re not entirely sure how many of these guitars exist, or how far along in the manufacturing process they were when production was paused—but they were clearly far enough along to already have slotted and drilled 12-string headstocks. So how do you turn that into a 6-string?

The easy answer would be to plug the slots and paint it a solid color, but it is likely these guitars were already somewhere in the finish process. So the slots were routed out a bit more, filled with black plastic caps, and…good enough!

Converter guitars like the 362/12 this guitar was based upon have an additional internal block to provide a solid mounting point for the converter assembly, but externally there is no difference. So apart from the Rose Morris f-hole, you can’t tell there’s anything else unusual about the guitar from the body alone.

But putting the Rose Morris f-hole and that headstock together in one package places the 3262 near the very top of the “what in the world is that thing?” list among Rickenbacker collectors.

When we talk about rare Rickenbacker models, we usually talk in terms of significance. That’s not the case with the 3262. It’s just weird. Not “prototype that didn’t go anywhere” weird, but “factory solving a problem in real-time” weird.

It’s also an artifact of an important relationship gone sour, and that story is worth telling. But mostly it’s just weird—and that’s my favorite part.

I doubt anyone could give you a definitive answer to that question—I certainly can’t. But I do have a pretty good idea what the top contenders likely are. Certainly some very early finishes from the 1950s like Two-Tone Brown, Turquoise Blue, and Montezuma Brown belong on the list. The Trans Blue/Green/Red finishes available on the 4004 probably do too. The matte finishes available on the 430, 3000, and 3001 are also contenders given how few of them were made.

But all of those examples come with caveats: they either come from very early in modern Rickenbacker’s history, or were only available on certain models.

So let’s revise the question a bit. What do you suppose is the rarest factory finish that was theoretically available across the entire main-line catalog?

My guess is Walnut.

“Now hold on,” you’re saying. “How can a color that was on the price list from 1974 to 1985 be the rarest Rickenbacker finish?”

And that’s a fair point. I should be more precise. What I’m talking about is Walnut as it appeared in 1974 and 1975. A very specific Walnut.

This Walnut:

Now you were probably picturing this when I said Walnut:

This far more common version of Walnut—produced from 1976 to 1985—is a burst pattern that ranged from brownish to orangish over its run and has launched a thousand arguments over “is it Walnut or Autumnglo?”

For the record, the answer in this case is Walnut. The confusion comes from the fact that Walnut and Autumnglo are actually the exact same color—the only difference is the clear coat. Autumnglo is matte, while Walnut is buffed to a high gloss.

But that’s not the Walnut we’re talking about here.

We’re talking about the first, monochromatic version.

Now I said for us to consider a finish to be a contender for the title of “the rarest” it had to be theoretically available across the entire line. And the 360 above helps make that case.

But if we’re being honest, well over 95% of the instruments you’ll find in this color are 4001 basses.

Here’s why that’s so—and why I still think it counts.

As we’ve discussed elsewhere, Rickenbacker guitar demand absolutely cratered in the early 1970s, dropping to only about 20-25% of the factory’s output in 1974 and 1975.

Luckily, however, bass demand exploded at roughly the same time. The factory simply couldn’t make enough 4001 basses to satisfy the demand.

So right away we already know that basses represented almost 80% of total production. That alone explains why the overwhelming majority of monochromatic Walnut instruments are 4001s.

The rest likely comes down to dealer ordering behavior. Given the state of the market, dealers were ordering 4001 basses to stock and guitars to order. You only buy what you know is going to sell, and Rickenbacker guitars simply weren’t selling at this point.

So a dealer might order five basses to hang on the wall because they knew they’d move. And they’d probably take whatever colors Rickenbacker happened to ship because special finish orders would only slow things down further.

Guitars were different. Somebody had to walk into the store and say “I want this guitar in this color”. And in 1974 nobody even knew this new Walnut color existed yet.

So why did they change from the monochromatic Walnut to burst Walnut in 1976? It probably came down to efficiency.

Rickenbacker had begun experimenting with both the monochromatic Walnut and the “burst” Autumnglo/Walnut in 1973, and you will find examples of all three from that year. Browns were the hot color palette of the 1970s, after all.

The monochromatic Walnut officially entered production in 1974, and Autumnglo followed in 1975. I suspect it didn’t take long to realize that it made more sense to spray one color scheme and simply change the final finish treatment. Buff it to a high gloss and you had Walnut. Leave it matte and you had Autumnglo.

And so the first iteration of Walnut ended up lasting only two years—the shortest run of any catalog, whole-line finish in the modern era. Is it the absolute rarest finish Rickenbacker ever produced? No. But is it the rarest finish ever offered across the main-line catalog? I’d say probably, yes. Answer me honestly: did you know it even existed before this? Enough said.

Want to learn more about all of Rickenbacker’s factory finishes? This article will tell you all about it: