Short Takes: Norman’s Rare Guitars 1994 1993SPC

In 1994 Rickenbacker produced a special batch of guitars to Norman Harris of Norman’s Rare Guitars’ specifications. Using the 360/12V64 as a “template”, these guitars got flamed maple tops and backs in Fireglo or Mapleglo and an f-hole. Most other details were 360/12V64 standard. The official designation on the warranty card was “1993SPC”, with one wag (hello JM!) suggesting that the “SPC” stood for “somewhat period correct.”

Let me reiterate that point: the official factory designation for these guitars was 1993SPC. Despite that, this point has been a hotly contested point over the years. The argument, put simply, is that the 1993 had an unbound fretboard with dot markers, and these guitars have bound fretboards with triangle inlays. Ergo they’re not 1993s. They should be called a 360/12V64SPC or some such. Which, you know, fair point.

But wait! Some of them DID have dot inlays:

But..bound necks. 1993s didn’t have bound necks. So STILL not a 1993. And we haven’t even talked about the gold plastics! Or, on this example, the gold…hardware? How many different versions of this thing were there?

Quite a few, it seems…even though the details are vague. Clouding the matter further, as these guitars age and have been resold, EVEN Norman’s Rare Guitars have called these guitars names other than “1993SPC”—as you can see above. But…1993SPC is what the factory called them, even if we don’t think that’s “right”.

Many of the variants listed above have never been documented. But if this list is right, they’re out there—and you won’t mistake them for anything else if you stumble across one!

Special thanks to John Minutaglio and Ron O’Keefe for filling in some of the gaping holes my first draft of this post had!