I'd like to tell you how i chose my first ric, how i played a lot of different models, chose between
different options and carefully examined all the colours, but i didn't really. I was just on a mission
to get a ric 12string.
It started some years ago. Looked like every other guitar part i come up with goes "oh, that
should be played on a jangly 12string electric". Can you expect anything else from a rabid Beatles fan
from age five on. Or from a Gene Clark / Byrds fan.
So i just needed any 300 model, i never played any, never held one in my hands, i don't even
remember seeing them (though i know i did), so i just let it happen, any model, any colour.
There is no russian ric dealer, although during 90s there was one actually. But with prices like
2000$ and higher (and those were the days when many people were happy with 200$ monthly
salaries) those guitars were more like museum pieces, being kept behind glass to be admired at
the shop entrance, and that dealer finally gave up tring to sell rics. Now there's a lot more
money in russia, and there are some expensive guitars here but almost no rics.
So the only way to get a ric is to buy it somewhere else. There are some small traders working
with ebay (american and others), actually about a month ago i emailed one trader who had a
360/12 fireglo (iirc). Price quotation was something like 2900 or 3000$, looked totally
unreasonable to me, nevertheless it was marked as sold just a few days later.
International shipping is not only expensive, but you also have to pay customs fees, roughly
30%, and if you return from abroad with a guitar you don't have to pay customs at all, so even
a 2 way flight ticket can be a better way.
Having a friend who works in london and agreed to bring me a guitar, i started looking for a
deal in uk. Lots of googling, lots of websites, best deal i found was a 340/12 blueburst here:
http://www.americanguitarsuk.com/guitar ... backer.php, but they didn't answer
my e-mail, so while i wondered if i should call them i started randomly e-mailing uk guitar
shops. Now i know i should have done this right from the start, looks like most guitar shops
don't bother too much updating their websites. They clearly don't expect large crowds of
ric-hungry foreigners.
There was one shop who answered my question if they have any ric 12string in stock with "yes,
fireglo for a 1000 pounds" with no mention of model or anything else. I thought maybe they were
being sarcastic, but didn't tell them so, just asked for some details. Next day they wrote me it
was sold. Aw, i just knew it wouldn't work out
Finally i found a good deal on a used 370/12 mapleglo. Looked up serial an a ric website, and it turns
out this guitar was made in august 1998. That date has a meaning for every russian, that was a time
of "default" when russian currency fell 300% overnight, prices went sky high, lots of people lost their
jobs including me. Well, we really had some fun those days.
Now the shop didn't accept foreign cards, and money transfer wasn't easy. My bank accountant asked for invoice
from the shop, and told me that invoice should contain both shop account details and certain phrase
about the guitar "to be further delivered to russian federation". I wasn't sure if i could
change the way the shop make invoices, so thank god for word processors. Later I was almost
drowned in all the paperwork, 4 copies of a 3-page contract, some parts has to be handwritten,
and a couple of days later i had to do it all again, because the date when my ID was issued was
missing from page 1 (it was on page 2, but it didn't matter of course). Is it everywhere like
this?
All's well that ends well. The guitar is here finally. It's in mint condition so i think it very rarely
(if ever) left the case before, i think there's no way keeping a guitar in such condition if you
actually play it.
I've seen lots of pictures of mapleglo rics, looked very plain and simple in pictures, but in reality
it looks like guitar is covered with tiny sparkles or small fur or i don't know how to describe it,
you should know anyway. What a pleasant surprise.
Also i had some initial shock (like in "i knew neck would be small, i just didn't expect it to be
that small!" and i thought i got small hands, by the way i never played a 12string before), but now this
guitar isn't a stranger to me anymore. Now that i know what she (guitar is always a she in russian)
likes and dislikes, it's getting easier every day.
Ok, enough talking, it's getting out of hand, and i just wanted to say hello.
So, ahem, hello!
