Short Takes: 1965-1966 420 Contoured Back

That just ain’t right…

I learn new things every time I do research for an article on this site. And I love that—learning new stuff is kind of why I do this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or this?

Or this?

Or this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So now you do.