Short Takes: The 2011 Pick of the Ricks 4001C64s
A reminder of the internet’s early days.
2000 wasn’t the beginning of the e-commerce revolution—the dot com bubble was actually already in the middle of bursting—but it was still the early days, with lots of people trying to carve out their little corner of the internet and find a way to make it pay.
John Hall was a “computer guy”, and had the presence of mind to register rickenbacker.com in 1996. By the following year he had a pretty good—by 1997 standards—site up and running. It even included a way to order parts and accessories directly from the factory via the “Boutique”.
Well, kinda. It provided a link to a PDF you could print, fill out, and then fax or mail to them. It was, as I say, the early days of e-commerce.
To be fair, terms like “B2B” and “B2C” were still relatively new to the lexicon at the time, and the idea of a “B2B” business—like Rickenbacker—selling directly to end users…well, it was both novel and more than a little controversial.
But a brick-and-mortar Rickenbacker dealer selling guitars, parts, and accessories taking that business online, making it easy for people without a local dealer to get the same or even better access? And then making those online sales an integral part of their business model? That was a pretty solid—and still fresh—idea.
Enter Pick of the Ricks. They saw the opportunity and grabbed it—and thanks to proactive outreach and excellent word of mouth, became a go-to online source for Rickenbacker enthusiasts for roughly two decades, from around 2000 to 2020.
And Rickenbacker themselves appreciated Pick of the Ricks enough that, in 2011, they offered them a dealer-exclusive run—at a time when dealer-specific runs were still quite rare. So what did they get?
Rickenbacker had announced the discontinuation of the 4001C64 (click to learn more) in 2009, with production finally winding down in late 2010 after the backlog had been filled. Pick of the Ricks requested one more run of just 15 instruments, in three custom colors: White, TV Yellow, and Special Green.
As a quick reminder, the 4001C64 was an homage to Paul McCartney’s 1964 4001S, used extensively in the studio during The Beatles’ later years and on stage and in the studio with Wings.
The 4001C64 emulated the “as-new” version of McCartney’s guitar, including a “backwards” headstock and truss rod cover, reflecting how the original 1964 right-hand-only headstock appeared “upside down” when played left-handed. There was also a second version, the 4001C64S, based on the modified Wings-era guitar, with stripped paint and sanded-over body wings.
“Special Green” was a pale mint green—not as blue as 2004’s Color of the Year (click to learn more) Blue Boy, and not as bright as 2000’s Sea Green.
“TV Yellow” tends to photograph more vividly than it appears in person, but it’s also not at all the same as Gibson’s more translucent, lime-washed color of the same name
For my money, the stark bright White version is the best looking of the bunch, but it also best highlights a problem all three share.
The semi-translucent “Sign White” Plexiglass Rickenbacker uses for the pickguard was originally designed to be backlit for use in applications like exit signs. On guitars with a lighter finish—including Mapleglo, but especially on this particular finish—you can clearly see the body routs right through the pickguard.
On the plus side, these guitars were built shortly after Rickenbacker changed to a UV-cured conversion varnish finish (click to learn more), meaning they’re far less prone to yellowing over time than White guitars from the 1970s–1990s.
Five were produced in each color, and they sold out almost immediately. They would be the last 4001C64s ever produced.
Pick of the Ricks closed its doors in early 2020—pre-COVID—and whether it was competition from larger online retailers like Sweetwater or simply time for owners Chris and Shelby Clayton to move on, a little piece of the early days of the internet was lost.
But those fifteen guitars are still out there, and one pops up every so often as a reminder of those days and of Pick of the Ricks itself.
