Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I hope it's alright that I post this since I'm not the registered owner of this bass. Sadly, it appears that the register entry for MB555 (Feb 1973) needs to be updated to indicate that the bass has been butchered.

The pickguard assembly, wiring harness, and jack plate are for sale on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1973-Rickenbac ... Sww9xZA9QX

The register entry for MB555 is here: http://www.rickresource.com/register/vi ... lebrity%3D

Dennis: Thanks for letting us know about this...

Just a question to whomever has just updated the register entry for this parted out bass. MB555

Deleting the actual images of the bass when intact, and replacing them with images of parts from auctions is a really bad idea, I think.

Perhaps Gil or Peter might weigh in on this subject, but I now see a number of registry entries for butchered instruments that are now pictures of parted out husks.

By all means, add a a picture or two of the carcass, but don't delete the original images, as the register is often the only place they have still survived, some of the images in there are more then a decade old now.

Also when entering an entry for a Butchered instrument, particularly one parted out by the NJ butcher, then go look through past eBay or Reverb sales and often you will find the instrument in question BEFORE it was parted out.

Enter that eBay auction first and grab the images before you mark it as butchered and feed in the Ginsondependbull auction info.
We want to to avoid duplicate entries int he register of the same instrument.

Usually it does not get entered into the register as we did not know the SN until we find it in the cavity of the instrument, which only happens AFTER it gets butchered. Also on a few rare occasions the butcher does post an actual image of the real jackplate. It is rare, but we have gotten a few SN's this way.

Having the images of the guitar or bass when intact gives whomever is restoring it a chance to get it back as it was, and gives them a reference to get it that way. Having more then a single image of the carcass seems rather pointless, to me anyway.

I would appreciate others thoughts on this.


Brian

Brian: This is, as has been noted a problem for the Register. I am inclined to begin culling these instruments if we no longer have images of the original. We have saved butchered instruments with little hope of following the trail of the parts over the course of time. We now have more than 500 butchered instruments.

Yep, the register is cluttered with junk. We need quality of quantity. For the past few years the guy(s) (primarily, Brian Morton) who has been registering "collected" instruments has been watering down and diluting the real reason for the register to exist in the first place. It's not supposed to be just a body count thing, is it?

Hey Jeff.
I don't think that the register is cluttered with Junk.
Actually, it might indeed be a bit cluttered but definately not due to the "collected instruments" information that exists there.
The collected instruments give us a ton of data that otherwise we wouldn't have had.
The purpose of the register has grown from a mere list of instruments owned by members to a statistical gold mine.

A few examples:
1. We have already united members with their stolen instruments. This wouldn't have been possible without members such as Ron and Brian scouting online sales.
2. We mark butchered instruments as butchered; Wouldn't you like to know that a "vintage" instrument actually had it's jack plate taken off a real vintage instrument?
3. Get actual sales prices of instruments to help establish the only Rickenbacker pricelist (probably one of the only instruments pricing tracking system out there!)
4. Get improved statistics such as - how many instruments were made in each year (using the old SN system).
Etc...

If you see erroneous listings, please feel free to reach out, actually - if you wish I could also give you a short online session so you could get more permissions and fix entries.

As for the original question at hand, I agree that the original picture of the instrument should remain, I would actually keep all original pictures and add the butchered images to the "extra" images part (2 pics would be more than enough, it's already heart breaking to see a butchered Rick...)

Thanks!

I've come to accept the collected instruments part of the database (even if I think it's an invasion of privacy), but I still have an issue with listing supposed sale prices. It's not comprehensive information, there is no explanation given for why a sale didn't occur or other specific details that could influence price.

And sale prices are always on a case-by-case basis and change daily. There is no practical use for a price guide in the registry, in my opinion. Not once have I ever used price data in this registry to influence a sale or purchase, nor would I give that data any credibility.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 for what it's worth.

collin wrote:I've come to accept the collected instruments part of the database (even if I think it's an invasion of privacy), but I still have an issue with listing supposed sale prices. It's not comprehensive information, there is no explanation given for why a sale didn't occur or other specific details that could influence price.

And sale prices are always on a case-by-case basis and change daily. There is no practical use for a price guide in the registry, in my opinion. Not once have I ever used price data in this registry to influence a sale or purchase, nor would I give that data any credibility.

Anyway, that's my $0.02 for what it's worth.

I disagree. I found the data in the register very useful when selling or buying Rickenbackers.
I do not solely rely on this source to set a price, but it's a very useful database.
Reverb is doing it too by the way.

It has helped me a lot, as setting a wrong price can totally ruin your sale chances or cost you a lot of money.
So thank you to the people that invest their time in this.

Reverb's price guides are wrong more often than they're right.

Especially in their case, since it relies on the name/description of the guitar. Just as an example, it'll pull prices from "American Telecaster," regardless of the year, specific features, limited editions, vintage reissue or any number of dozens of guitars that fit that criteria, with vastly different prices.

Again, if you want a price guide, hit up eBay "completed" sale prices. It's never wrong, and always up-to-date.

Reverb's price guides are wrong more often than they're right.

Especially in their case, since it relies on the name/description of the guitar. Just as an example, it'll pull prices from "American Telecaster," regardless of the year, specific features, limited editions, vintage reissue or any number of dozens of guitars that fit that criteria, with vastly different prices.

Again, if you want a price guide, hit up eBay "completed" sale prices. It's never wrong, and always up-to-date.

Also remember, Reverb has a vested interest in its sellers getting as much as they can - which boosts their fee.

I do not mean to create any controversy here.

All I am saying, is directed at one individual, who keeps deleting images of the guitar or bass and replacing them with images of the carcass.

I have shown my own process in using the butcher to find SNs. (When he sells the jackplate, or more commonly from the pencil written int he cavity).

I am not saying that I have NEVER added a carcass only butchered RIC, just that it was one that I could not find the original sale or auction for when it was in one piece. Those two sales always need to be linked and the images that should be preserved are the ones of the instrument in one piece.

As the info was in the register, I once helped a man on Facebook who had bought a carcass of a butchered 330/12 restore the guitar back to spec. He was able to identify that the carcass was the same guitar. That gave him the SN, which he then had stamped onto a blank jackplate.

In the comments section of the butchered instrument I always put the phrase "Butchered in NJ on DATE, eBay XXXXXX and XXXXX", with the numbers being for the jackplate and the carcass.)

Whomever is doing the deleting is just putting the phrase "auction of Body only", which is typically untrue as the rest of the parts of the guitar are normally up of auction at the same time.

The value of us tracking butchered instruments in the register, is the example of the fake 325 that was floating about 6 years back, that sported the Jackplate off of a butchered 610. Anyone who did NOT know it was a fake would have it confirmed very quickly if they did a search for the SN in the database.

It ain't perfect by any means, but I think that the more info we can have the better! (Collin's privacy concerns aside).

Brian

admin wrote:Brian: This is, as has been noted a problem for the Register. I am inclined to begin culling these instruments if we no longer have images of the original. We have saved butchered instruments with little hope of following the trail of the parts over the course of time. We now have more than 500 butchered instruments.

I don't know if I would cull the data and the SN itself on ANY instrument we have in the register, unless it is proven to be wrong or incorrectly collected.

I would hope that some of the images are still in a backup somewhere and can be restored. Back when I first started adding instruments, I kept my own personal collection of images on an external hard - drive. I am always very hesitant about deleting ANY old images in teh register, as I know that it is often the only place that they have been preserved at all. The main exception has been when Olivia's gets a guitar and their images are so much better. But even then I will back up the old images on my own hard drive before replacing them.

And I really hesitate even when I do it.

Although it adds more grief to administering the data base, perhaps changes to existing records in the register should need "admin" approval?

collin wrote:Reverb's price guides are wrong more often than they're right.

Especially in their case, since it relies on the name/description of the guitar. Just as an example, it'll pull prices from "American Telecaster," regardless of the year, specific features, limited editions, vintage reissue or any number of dozens of guitars that fit that criteria, with vastly different prices.

Again, if you want a price guide, hit up eBay "completed" sale prices. It's never wrong, and always up-to-date.

Thank you Collin.

A few questions, if I may:

1. Can you please explain how is the register violating anyone's privacy?
2. The pricelist is incomplete, I never had the chance to do what I had planned to do with it, so far we are mostly collecting information but there is enough information stored to improve on it in the future (for example: avg/median prices on a per year basis, the market has fluctuated quite a lot since we started collecting prices (almost 10 years now!!!), also: I plan on adding a field for instrument condition (parts only/poor/reasonable/good/vg/mint) so the pricelist will reflect that (although this will reflect only future instruments collection). etc...