Somebody sent me a note the other day asking for information on Grayglo—which is, in fact, a real thing. I said to myself, “I feel like I’ve talked about this before,” and it turns out I have. Kind of. It gets a one-sentence description and a photo in our article on “Special Colors” (click to learn more).
Upon realizing that was all there was, I thought “This sounds like a good Short Takes topic.”
And here we are, so let’s do it.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is Grayglo:
For better context, here is that same guitar beside a Jetglo example:
It’s subtle, but noticeable, right?
Here’s what makes Grayglo worthy of discussion: it starts off as Jetglo. It’s the finishing process that produces the color difference.
And lighting matters a ton in terms of how “grey” it appears. The pics above, taken outside in natural sunlight? The effect is obvious. Here it is under indoor lighting:
That just looks like Jetglo—maybe even a matte finish. And therein lies the secret.
It’s not a matte finish…exactly. Here’s what we know for a fact, from the mouth of John Hall:
“They start out as JetGlo but get a coat of matte finish underneath the gloss final coat.”
So there are basically three components that make up Grayglo: a Jetglo base, a matte layer, and then the normal, high-gloss finish on top. That matte layer scatters light differently than the normal shiny Jetglo base coat, and that’s what makes it grey—and different levels of grey in different lighting.
And it wasn’t some kind of accident or flaw, as some supposed when the handful of these that were produced hit stores in 2007 without fanfare or explanation. It was simply an experiment that was released into the wild. Hall went on to say:
“We have produced some instruments like this and dealers have been quite enthusiastic of the color. However, it remains to be seen whether we'll produce additional units."
The answer to that question was no, by the way. A handful made between July and September 2007, and then never again.
And if you’re wondering if the name Grayglo is fan terminology or Rickenbacker canon, Hall himself called it Grayglo back in 2007. So canon it is.
You now know everything there is to know about Grayglo. It’s not a lot, I’ll give you, but it did deserve more than a one-sentence description, right? And if you have a Jetglo Rickenbacker made between July and September 2007 that has always looked a little funny to you, maybe take it outside, huh?