Had it not been for a certain someone from Liverpool buying the very first short-scale Capri guitar built in a Hamburg music store in 1960, the few shorties built between 1958 and 1960—right around fifty total—would almost certainly be forgotten today.
And Roger Rossmeisl (click to learn more) seemed to recognize from the start that the basic design had potential—a striking semi-hollow body shape derived from the solidbody Combo 850 he had designed the year before, then optimized for production by removing the labor-intensive German carved (click to learn more) top and lightened by hollowing out the thick body slab from the rear—but how big of a market could there really be for short-scale guitars? He needed to literally scale it up.
So how did we get from this:
To this?
There must be some missing link, right? Yes, there is—but it’s not actually missing. Rossmeisl built three guitars that bridged the gap, and all three are accounted for today. Enter the long-body Capri.
It didn’t take him long, either. 325 serial number V81—the very guitar that certain someone bought in that Hamburg music store—was the very first short-scale Capri built. But by serial number V87—the seventh guitar built—Rossmeisl was already adjusting the design.
V87 was still a short-scale, but the body got stretched a bit. Compare the two shapes side-by-side:
Notice particularly the difference in distance between the bridge and the butt of the guitar. The width is roughly the same, but Rossmeisl had stretched the body about two inches.
All that space behind the bridge looks a little goofy, it’s true, but it was a work in progress. The very next guitar built, V88, featured the same elongated body but looked a little more proportional. Rossmeisl fitted it with a Combo 850 neck, giving it a standard 24.75-inch scale, which pushed the bridge further down the body. You can really see the difference in the pickup spacing.
How do we know it’s a Combo 850 neck? The tell is the headstock: Rossmeisl’s original swooping design for the Combo 600 and 800 (click to learn more) that had carried over to the Combo 850. All the short-scale Capris had the new, more familiar paddle-shaped headstock. And all other 24.75-inch scale guitars being produced at the time had a through-neck (click to learn more) and paddle-shaped headstocks. It could only be a Combo 850.
Fun fact: you might look at this guitar and say “long scale, three pickups, Kauffman Vibrola (click to learn more)…must be a 345.” Nope. The factory records say 325. Why? Because at this point there was no such thing as a 345—or even any full-size Capri. This was the first one.
V89 through V111 reverted to the shorter body, but Rossmeisl didn’t give up on the idea. V87 and V88 were built in late February/early March 1958, and delivered from the factory to Radio-Tel on March 6th. Exactly one month later, April 6th, the third long-body Capri showed up at Radio-Tel: 2T100.
Now you can learn how to decode early Rickenbacker serial numbers here, but if you want the quick and dirty version, here it is. In 1958, all the short-scale Capri serial numbers started with V, followed by a production number, which began with 81. When the full-size Capris appeared, they began with a 2 or 3—the number of pickups—then a T or a V to indicate “tailpiece” or “vibrato”, and then a production number, starting with 100. Making 2T100 the first “official” full-size Capri produced—even if all that followed looked significantly different.
V87 and 2T100 both featured multi-piece maple butcher-block tops, as did a number of the prototype/early production full-size Capris. Normally, when you count the pieces of a butcher-block top, you just go left to right, and then you’re done. But in both cases here, there’s an “extra” piece you may not expect. Let’s see if you can spot it.
That’s weird, right? The tip of the upper cutaway is an extra piece. Same on 2T100, and same on the earliest full-size butcher-block Capris. Why? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe the maple blanks they were using were only so long. There’s no way of knowing today.
But back to 2T100. It differed from V88 in a number of ways. Obviously, it only had two pickups and the off-the-shelf tailpiece found on the first non-vibrato-equipped Capris. It had a purpose-built neck with a paddle-shaped headstock. It featured mock-tortoiseshell binding on the top—the first bound modern Rickenbacker, if I’m not mistaken. And then there’s the slash soundhole. Kinda? The kinda slash soundhole?
Slash soundholes were Rossmeisl’s signature back in Germany. All his Roger designs had featured one. He’d already built a guitar for Rickenbacker in 1957—and then another in 1958—that echoed his German designs, the 390. So still a big part of his design language.
Now this is pure supposition, but I see it playing out like this: Rossmeisl looks at the finished 2T100, says “Hmm…it’s missing something,” grabs a can of paint and adds on one of his trademark slash soundholes, steps back and says “Yeah, man. That’s it!”
Regardless, the painted-on soundhole would be a one-of-one. When the familiar Capri body appeared, as seen on 3V103 below—the fourth full-size Capri, shown with a replacement tailpiece—the soundhole had gone from painted to cut. The long soundhole we see on these early guitars would be shortened a couple times over the course of 1958 before settling into the familiar shape still in use today.
Looking at the final full-size Capri shape, it’s fairly clear that just as Rossmeisl had first stretched the short-scale body lengthwise, he then took the resulting long-body shape and stretched it from side to side. Thus the full-size Capri.
When you look at all three of the long-body Capris, you’ll notice plenty of variations, which is to be expected given the iterative nature of Rossmeisl’s design process. But there are some constants, like the fact that all three have the same two-control layout—a master volume and a master tone. That’s not unusual—it’s how all Capris were wired until mid-1958. As far as the knobs themselves go, V87 and V88 have the Rogan cooker knobs, and 2T100 has chrome console steel knobs. Again, not unusual. The early Capris were kind of a mishmash. Final specifications wouldn’t get nailed down until late 1958.
If you’ve been reading the photo captions, you’ve noticed that V87 and V88 are labeled as 325s—and we’ve already discussed why—but 2T100 is labeled a 360. So what makes it different?
The serial number tells us a lot. The fact that it was the first of the new numbering scheme sets it apart from the V serial numbers that came before. And indeed, when the next short-scale Capris were produced in 1959, they too would utilize the new scheme.
Remember, the Capri line was literally being developed on the production line. We’ve already seen the proof of that. So when did the model names get established? Well, the first 1958 price list was printed in June, so some time before that, obviously. You can recognize the lineup as we know it today from that first price list.
The new serial number scheme was clearly built to “work” with this lineup, which strongly suggests that 2T100 is part of it. And if we look at its features—full-neck, two pickups, tailpiece, that makes it a…330? You forgot the brown body binding. Go read the price list again. No, it doesn’t have fingerboard inlays, but it does have that binding. So. A 360, the community has decided.
Here’s another fun fact I bet you didn’t know: in early 1958—and only early 1958—deluxe models in Two-Tone Brown came with white binding, while Natural guitars came with brown, like 2T100. Now you do. I should probably do an article on that…
Now there was a second price list in July that added a whole bunch more models—a lot of which never actually made it into production. In many cases we haven’t even seen a prototype. In others, weve seen multiple guitars that “could” be prototypes for some of those models…the point is the line was very fluid at the time.
Which puts those three long-body Capris into context. Rossmeisl had been told to go wild, and he absolutely did. These guitars show him doing exactly that—experimenting, learning, and adapting his way through 1958 toward the modern Rickenbacker lineup.
V88 looks like a pregnant spider.
Off topic, but one thing I noticed but only after many years in awe of the German carve 381, the inner "relief"? "Protrusion"?....is that of the 325.
I know, its obvious probably to more than myself but I was like...HEY! I know that shape!!!😁