Short Takes: 1981 4001S/FL

Sometimes a guitar looks so ordinary you can miss how extraordinary it actually is. Here’s a case in point. Look closely at this 4001S and tell me what you notice.

Bartolini pickup at the bridge? Yeah, that’s not stock. And yeah, there’s a couple extra mini-toggles on that pickguard. I wonder what those do? But that’s not what we’re talking about. Tell me what you DON’T see.

Frets. There’s no frets! “So what?” you may ask. “There are plenty of 4001FLs out there!” But this ISN’T a 4001. It’s a 4001S. And Rickenbacker didn’t make a fretless 4001S. Or did they?

“Well, clearly it’s been modified”, you say. And yes, we’ve already established it’s had some mods. But not the frets. “But how can you know that for sure?” you say. Because it still belongs to the original owner who custom ordered it in 1981, that’s how.

And while it obviously doesn’t have the binding or stereo wiring of a “standard” 4001FL—the 4001S by definition doesn’t have either of those—there’s another subtle difference: the inlays.

“But the 4001FL has dot inlays, not triangles” you say. That’s true. But it has DIFFERENT, larger pearl dot inlays. This guitar has “standard” 4001S dot inlays. This is a unique thing!

Left: 4001FL dot inlays. Right: 4001S/FL dot inlays

According to the owner there are two fretless 4003S’s out there, but this is the only known example of a fretless 4001. I certainly haven’t stumbled across another one! It just goes to show you need to look closely because sometimes the extraordinary is hiding in plain sight.