Detective Stories: The Phantom Combo 650
Vaporware or the real deal?
I don’t believe that the Combo 650 ever actually existed as a production model. There. I said it. The books and the community treat its existence as an established fact, but I just don’t buy it. Let’s see if I can convince you too.
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 began with a “C” for Combo, then 4 for the 400, 6 for the 600, and 8 for the 800. 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.
Overview: The Combo 600 & 800
The launch of the Combo 600 and 800 in 1954 marked the birth of Rickenbacker as we now know it.