Let’s play a little game. I want you to close your eyes and picture a white Rickenbacker bass. Ok. Got it? Was it this?
Boy, I tell you, I encountered a Tuxedo in the wild at Manny’s in New York in…1988? 1989? I was dumbstruck. Picture one of these brand new, so white it almost hurt your eyes, not a scratch on it. Just wow.
But that’s not the white bass we’re going to talk about today. In fact, we’re not talking about a BH/BT-era bass at all. So with that in mind, close your eyes and try again.
And remember: no black hardware.
Oh hell yeah! 1970s. Black plastics. 8-strings. Potato headstock. John Entwistle and Chris Squire. Excellent choice.
You’re getting warmer, but that’s not it.
Try again.
I mean, right? I know why you went there. That creamy color from the yellowed topcoat is what most of those 1970s and ’80s White basses look like today. It’s true.
But it’s still not what I’m looking for.
One more shot.
A 4004 (click to learn more) in Snowglo? That’s a deep cut, man. You know your stuff! Although it is technically Snowglo, not White. So, again, not what we’re looking for.
One last chance. Seriously. This is it. Dig deep.
You know, the 3000 and 3001 (click to learn more) did come in White! I had forgotten that! But it’s still not the answer I’m looking for.
I could give you more guesses—I can think of a couple Snowglo 4003 (click to learn more) runs and of course there’s the 4080, but that’s a bass and a guitar so it doesn’t really count—but I still doubt you’ll get it. I doubt you even know this exists. So I won’t tease you any longer. Behold:
I mean, if you stop and think about it, it absolutely makes sense that such a thing exists. You’ve probably just never seen one before.
When you think of basses from the 1970s and early ’80s—especially White basses—the 4005 probably doesn’t spring to mind. And to be fair, the 4005 (click to learn more) went dormant after 1974—when White basses started becoming a thing—and didn’t reappear until 1979. A bunch were made in 1979, and then a handful in 1981 and 1982, and then they disappeared for good.
But 1979 to 1982 landed right at the tail end of the Black Trim era, so in hindsight it’s not entirely surprising that a few BT 4005s made their way out of the factory.
You can read more about the Black Trim and Black Hardware/Black Trim eras here, but in a nutshell, from 1973—literally starting with the two custom-built 8-string 4001/8s (click to learn more) we talked about above—until about 1983, basses in White and Autumnglo came stock from the factory with black body binding and plastics. Mapleglo was also sometimes similarly equipped. Thus the “Black Trim era.”
Oddly, the neck binding on BT instruments stayed white. That wouldn’t change until the BH/BT era, starting in 1984.
Black trim made it to other models as well. I’ve seen it on 330s, 450s—and those full-face 450 pickguards look extra strange in black!—481s, and even a couple 360s from this era.
So of course there had to be a couple 4005s as well.
There are currently two on the Rickenbacker Register, and a potential third showed up on Facebook a couple weeks ago:
I say “potential” third because one of the entries on the Register has no photos, and we don’t know the serial number of this one. It could be the same bass, or it could be a third…we just don’t have enough information.
But both examples we have photos of share a trait seen on other White Rickenbackers, but not the 4001 (click to learn more). Let’s focus in here on the pickups a little bit:
Yes, the clearcoat over the White finish has yellowed to give the whole guitar a creamy color. That’s not what I’m talking about. Here’s a slightly better photo of what I’m talking about on a 1987 360/12 (click to learn more) Tuxedo pickup:
You see that orangey-brown discoloration of the finish around the pickup? Sometimes—not always—there is “some” sort of reaction between White finishes and the foam rubber mounting pads the Higain pickups sit on. I’ve seen—but can’t find right now, of course—pictures of White guitars with their pickups off and a clear brown imprint of where the pads sit. Go figure.
You don’t see that on White 4001s and 4003s because, well, they don’t use Higain mounting pads. The neck pickup is mounted under the pickguard, and the bridge pickup is attached to the pickup surround. So no pad, no discoloration.
It’s also kind of weird to see Higains on a 4005 at all. Or inset poured inlays. Because so few were made after the Transitional Era, your mental picture of a 4005 probably has toasters and crushed pearl inlays. But basses with modern features like these absolutely exist—even if they do look kind of odd.
And that’s really about all there is to say. It’s not a special model or some forgotten factory experiment. It’s just what happens when the very end of 4005 production overlaps with the Black Trim era.
Which means that, as weird as they look, there’s really nothing weird about them at all.
I still bet you never would have guessed it, though.
Is this your first NSFW post?
I had a white 74 4000 for close to 20 years. (Purchased used in 2002). Black pickguard and black plexi trc, chrome hardware.
It had quite a lot of yellowed blotchiness overall, really unattractive, looking like tobacco smoke damage, and also rusty stains on the neck near the headstock and lower body bouts.
Those presumably were caused by contact with rubber pads on guitar stands/hangers. Several aggressive applications of Zymol removed the stains,
and gave it a smooth, consistent light cream color. White 4000 models were fairly rare to find too, although I’m sure there were many more of those made than white 4005s from that period.
Always nice to see white Ricks in any range of the pallet!