Terminology: Red Side Dots
Who even looks at this stuff?
We are closing in on 200 articles here at Rickenbacker 101, and I’m almost certain I have never once used the term “side dots.”
We talk about every other specification and feature that exists—sometimes in excruciating detail—but not the one feature that almost every single model has: side dots.
Because who pays attention to side dots? I mean, when you’re playing you might look down every once in a while, but as a feature of a guitar worth talking about? They’re background noise.
But there are rules, and we might as well document them on the slim chance someone wakes up at three in the morning with a burning question about Rickenbacker side dots.
So here are the rules: instruments with white binding get black dots, and instruments with no binding or black binding get white dots. Makes sense, no?
But you know what’s coming next, right? Because this is Rickenbacker, after all.
Except when they are red.
Now you’re going to have to trust me on this and be willing to squint a lot because for some reason great detail photos of side dots are few and far between. But there are two periods when red dots were the rule on guitars with white binding.
The Capri models of 1958 introduced the idea of “deluxe” models, and red side dots were one of the features that distinguished them.
You may need to use your imagination a little bit, but I promise you those are red. Note also the three dots at the twelfth fret on this prototype Capri!
And no, the red dots weren’t just a prototype thing. Here they are again in 1959:
Admittedly they’re not a Coca-Cola bright red—they do have 67 years of grime and ambered clear coat—but they’re red nevertheless.
1960, 1961, 1962…zoom in and squint and you’ll see it. They’re red. And, of course, you know about this one from 1963:
I’d love to show you a close-up photo of the red dots on George Harrison’s 1963 360/12, but who cares enough about the side dots to take a picture? Regardless, this guitar has red side dots too. I promise.
Let me prove it. Just to show how much effort they were putting into getting the 360/12C63 reissue of that guitar as close to the original as possible, consider this: when the guitar was launched in 2005, its red side dots got almost as much attention as the internal X-bracing (click to learn more).
The 360/12C63 has retained its red side dots to this day.
So why, then, did I begin this article by saying deluxe guitars with white binding have black dots? Because, all things considered, the red side dots didn’t last all that long. The black dots started appearing in late 1964, and have been the rule ever since. More or less.
Now it would be very logical and clean to say the change coincided with the launch of the new round-top 360 New Style in 1964, so of course it didn’t…exactly.
When the 6-string version of the 360 New Style launched in early 1964, it did so with the same red dots everything else had used up to that point. But when the 12-string appeared in December, it had something more than the six extra strings: black side dots.
Was that the end of red side dots? Close enough. I won’t say you won’t find 1965 guitars with red side dots…but you won’t find many.
It’s well established that during this period when the shop floor ran out of “something,” they’d grab whatever was handy. That likely explains the handful of red-dot 1965 guitars you’ll find.
The rule was established. But as always with Rickenbacker, you can never rule out the exceptions.
So, the end? Not quite. Red dots would rear their tiny little heads once again in 1974.
Sometime around May, instruments began leaving the factory with red dots. Intentionally, but not due to a spec change.
Here’s what former shop employee Dale Fortune has to say about it:
“…for some reason we used Red side dot/fret marker material when we ran out of the black stuff. Don't know why, it was in the supply room and when Dick Burke said use this, we did. It wasn't used as a special thing, but at random, mostly on the 480s as I remember.”
And here’s former employee Mark Arnquist’s recollection:
“Bill would go buy rolls of the stuff and some times the company would be out of stock of the black PVC material .
We used Blue,Red , green , Brown instead of black. In 1976 we even had a guy that kept installing three dots at the 12th fret .... these would get a blue and red dot scheme.”
There’s some disconnect between those two tellings—but let’s note that both came about 30 years after the fact and time blurs details. Regardless, there’s a common theme: we ran out of the regular stuff, so we used what was available.
Except…it wasn’t just the 480, like Dale Fortune says. It was pretty much everything made between May and August of 1974.
And mostly what they made between May and August of 1974 was 4001s. A lot of 4001s.
This is not some rare phenomenon I have uncovered. Google “red-dot 1974 4001” and you’ll get plenty of results. That said, I’m not sure it’s widely known that pretty much everything made in that window had red dots. After all, since almost everything that came out of the factory at that point was a 4001, it’s easy to miss.
But the sheer volume of red-dot instruments made in this window raises an interesting question. Who exactly ran out of the black material?
I mean, I can see grabbing a roll of red out of the storeroom to use for a week or so while you get more black in. But you had to have a lot of red rolls in the storeroom to cover a four-month window.
It sounds more to me like their supplier ran out of the black material and asked, “Will red do?”
I mean, that’s just a guess, but it fits the evidence pretty well. As to the whole rainbow of colors Mark Arnquist calls out…it hasn’t surfaced. I sure hope it does, though!
So yeah: red dots are a real thing, and frankly the only thing that makes Rickenbacker side dots worth mentioning. Because who pays attention to side dots?
I wonder where the dots are on McCartney's bass with the right-handed neck?