Short Takes: The 1957 “Half-Tulip” Combo 450

The rarest production Rickenbacker?

What would you guess is the rarest “production” Rickenbacker? We’re not talking about a prototype like the Polynesian or the long-body Capris or any of the oddballs hanging on the wall upstairs at the Rickenbacker factory—we’re talking official “production” guitars only.

It won’t be an “obvious” answer like the famously “rare as hen’s teeth”—to quote John Hall—4002 bass. There’s probably around 200 of those out there. It’s not the Bantar, either. While there are probably fewer than 50 of those, that’s still a pretty large number for what we’re talking about. The Mando Guitar? A solid choice, but as a custom order it doesn’t count.

It may not be the absolute rarest, but the 1957 half-tulip Combo 450 has to be pretty close to it. Bridging the gap from the tulip era to the cresting wave era and produced for only a few months in late 1957, most people don’t even know it exists. Well, if you’re here you probably do—but if you didn’t, you do now.

1957 half-tulip Combo 450

We’ve already covered the complete history of the Combo 450 (click to learn more), but the half-tulip only gets a brief mention there because, over the course of its twenty-seven-year lifetime, this version was little more than a blip. So let’s give it a little love here.

So first of all, why “half-tulip”? It’s simple. The first Combo 450—introduced earlier in 1957—was a two-pickup version of the Combo 400 (click to learn more). The Combo 400 had debuted the year before, and featured a body shape that looks a lot like…a tulip.

1956 Combo 400

The first Combo 450s looked just like that, but with two pickups. Later that year, however, Roger Rossmeisl revised the design. As you can see, the tulip’s concave cutaways made upper fret access difficult. Whether in response to player feedback or just common sense, he trimmed the lower cutaway significantly, removing half of the “tulip”. And thus the half-tulip was born.

Reshaped 1957 Combo 450 cutaway

Because 1957 serial numbers don’t contain date information, it’s difficult to say exactly when during the year the change happened. However, of the thirteen 1957 Combo 450s documented with photos on the Rickenbacker Register, only three are half-tulips—which suggests the change likely occurred late in the year.

Of course, more exist than those three documented examples—there are pictures of guitars other than those three in this article alone. But if those three represent ten to twenty percent of the total production—which is a pretty good rule of thumb for register entries of this vintage—that means there’s somewhere between fifteen and thirty guitars total out there. That’s pretty rare.

The Combo 450 wasn’t the only guitar to transition from a full tulip to a half-tulip in the back half of 1957—the short-scale 1000 solidbody (click to learn more) did as well, having launched as a full tulip early in the year. Unlike the Combo 450, however, the 1000’s half-tulip remained in production until 1965.

1957 half-tulip 1000

If you think the half-tulip looks a little ungainly, so did Roger Rossmeisl. In early 1958 he took a whack at the Combo 450’s upper cutaway as well. The result was the “cresting wave” body shape that lives on to this day on the 620 and 660.

1958 cresting wave 450

And just like that—with only a few months under its belt—the half-tulip Combo 450’s very short life was over.

Note that all three of the shapes we’ve seen—the tulip, the half-tulip, and the cresting wave—are all the same underneath. All that differs is how much of the tops of the tulip is cut away. Look closely at the cresting wave version and you can still see the original tulip’s top.

Left: tulip upper cutaway. Right: cresting wave upper cutaway

As a side note, if you’ve ever wondered when the Combo 450 became just the 450, in the collector world this is it: when the half-tulip was replaced by the cresting wave. The 1959 price list would be the last year to explicitly call it a Combo 450, and solidbody guitars would be labeled as the “Combo Series” on the price list through 1968, but in collector lingo tulip/half tulip equals Combo 450 and cresting wave equals simply 450.

1957 half-tulip Combo

One other interesting thing about the half-tulip Combo 450s is that they challenge a commonly held belief that is often stated as a fact. That “fact” is that Fireglow (and yes, it had a -w until 1967) debuted in 1959. So what color would you call that guitar above? It certainly looks like Fireglow.

Yes, it could be a refinish. But what about this one?

1957 Fireglow half-tulip Combo 450

Or how about this 1958 cresting wave 450?

1958 Fireglow 450

The simple fact is this: yes, “Fireglow” first appeared on the price list and on semihollow Capris in 1959. But the evidence strongly suggests that Rickenbacker began experimenting with the finish earlier than that—likely as early as 1956. These half-tulip Combo 450s are compelling evidence of that early experimentation.

So if the half-tulip Combo 450 isn’t the rarest production Rickenbacker, what else might compete for the title? The 6005 and 6006 Banjoline twins are strong candidates. The Combo 850 and 650 are definitely up there as well—although I’m not convinced that the Combo 650 actually exists—the only known examples are trade show guitars, not production examples.

1957 half-tulip 450

In the end, the half-tulip Combo 450 may not be the rarest production Rickenbacker—but it’s hard to imagine many that are rarer. It’s a guitar that existed just long enough to be forgotten—until you learn to recognize it. And once you do, you’ll start spotting this odd little in-between shape hiding in plain sight.