Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Perhaps then, the guitar in question had been strung up with those high tension Pyramid strings previous to the OP taking possession of this guitar?

The previous owner had Rick 10s strung up on it.
I just put a set of 9s on it the night before taking that picture.

String gauge is only one spec out of several. Not all sets of "10s" are the same. Do you know what brand and "model" of the previous strings that were on the guitar?

So here's a follow up:

I took it to a guy in Chicago who I think knows more about Rickenbacker 12 strings than anyone in the area. He owns a shop and was willing to write me a second report to send to Reverb.
I have known him for years, trust him, and think he's a fantastic musician on top of all that. I'm not sure if he'd like his name posted here, but if anyone needs a Rick guy PM and I'll give you his shop name.

He took the Rick out and said, "it doesn't look THAT bad." He was REALLY impressed with the string break angle off the bridge to tailpiece.
With some slight tightening of the truss rod he was able to get the bridge up a little, now it's not as high as some of the ones I'm seeing here but he wasn't too concerned with that. Infact he said if he still had his 1993+ in shop he woulda traded for this 360c happily without concern. He said the color was great and it felt really good playing unplugged.

He then brought out a reissue that Norm's did of a 360 styled 12. I guess only 20 were made and Petty got one? He also brought out a stock 1966 360 that was gorgeous.
My 360c bridge wasn't really that much lower than either of those guitars.

He tweaked the intonation a bit on mine and we compared the 3. I personally thought my 360c sounded more jangly than the Norm reissue and pretty close to the '66 360. The scatterwound pickups on this thing sound really good.

So now I've got this guitar that someone who loves Ricks says is a great playing and sounding guitar, I've compared it to a real '66 and I think it sounded pretty authentic.
As the weekend rolls on Reverb emailed me and said, "would you be willing to take $300 off the guitar? We will pay for the reimbursement."

I took the 300 and figured I got either a good deal on this guitar or a down payment on a potential neck reset.

This thread is interesting to me, as a new Rickenbacker 360/12 owner. It's my first Rickenbacker too. Mine is a 1996 and came with 10 gauge Pyramids and the neck angle is similar to yours, the opposite of a Les Paul. I sort of thought that was on purpose but now I know it's a result of aging and these Pyramid strings.

All the above. So long as the guitar retains tuning stability with the light strings and there is still some space between the bottom of the bridge and the bridge plate, then the guitar will function indefinitely, assuming keeping the guitar in moderate temperature and humidity and avoiding extremes.