Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

A 1975 Rickenbacker 430 just came up on Kijiji in Toronto.

http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell ... Z332071595

Nice one - and close to me! Looks stock too. I paid $540 for mine but one pickup was swapped out for a Seymour Duncan.

These are under rated RICS IMHO...

According to our price list, this axe is going for around the median price. Is this a decent price for a 430, though? I'm seeing it as a bit high, considering the 610 (without case, too, but much prettier IMHO) that sold yesterday for $750.

With the bolt-on neck, how do 430s compare, sound-wise, with the 610s, 620s, etc?

It could well be high, but the plexi black TRC is probably worth near $200. I do like a nice original case with a guitar though.

DoubleThink wrote:According to our price list, this axe is going for around the median price. Is this a decent price for a 430, though? I'm seeing it as a bit high, considering the 610 (without case, too, but much prettier IMHO) that sold yesterday for $750.

With the bolt-on neck, how do 430s compare, sound-wise, with the 610s, 620s, etc?

Stefan:

The JG 610 was a real steal - I would have been all over that one myself - except that I already own a 1991 JG 610...

The 430 is up for sale from a different seller - so it is just a co incidence that they are up in Toronto at the same time.


As to my reaction to my 430 it is a little more "Fenderish" then my other RICS... But perhaps that has something to do with the swapped out Pickup. The fret board is also flat and not glossy which is a real difference as well.

As Brian says, the JG 610 for $750 looked like an absolute bargain -- I'd have jumped all over it if I could only have found a way to justify the purchase to my wife, but since I just bought a JG 620-6 earlier this year I couldn't come up with a plausible explanation as to why I also needed a 610.

In terms of the sound difference between a 430 and a 620, I've had a 430 for almost 30 years, now joined by my 620. To my years they sound somewhat different, but it is difficult to articulate exactly what the differences are, or identify how much is attributable to the bolt-on neck vs. the differences in tailpiece and pickups. The tonal difference, while noticeable when they are played side-by-side, isn't vast -- they sound closer to one another than they do to the other guitars in my house (a Fender Tele with coil-tapped humbuckers and a cheap Squier strat).

The differences in feel are more pronounced -- as Brian points out, the 430 has an dead flat & unfinished fretboard, which is actually very comfortable to play but which can be disconcerting to people who aren't used to it. It is also a 24-fret neck, vs. 21 on the 620.

I agree with Brian that the 430s are underrated, although I must also confess that if someone held a gun to my head and told me I could only keep one of my Rickenbackers, I would grab my 620 with only a moment's hesitation.

My first reaction was that the $900 asking price was on the high side, but I have not seen one of these for sale in Canada for a long time.