Lennon's 1958 Model 325

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu Aug 10, 2000 7:48 pm

It seems that Lennon's 1958 325 is in the news again. For Rickenbacker enthusiasts it has been in the news since the fall of 1960. Its natural maple was subsequently painted black in the fall of 1962 and then refinished again some years later at a time that is not known with any precision. Following this post you will see photos of Lennon's 325 from April 1962 during a Star Club performance, from Bacon and Day 1994 and allegedy from a recent August 2000 photo from Japan. So you be the judge are these photos of the same guitar or not. Apologies for the quality of the photos and the angle at which they were taken but hey, you take what you can get in these ventures.

Tuck_Hersey · Post by **Tuck_Hersey** » Sun Aug 13, 2000 5:37 pm

I think they are pictures of the same guitar. The bottom photo is from a recent press release from Taisei Corporation's web site. Here's a translation:

"The John Lennon Museum will open on October 9 2000, formally approved by Yoko Ono. There will be about 130 items related to John Lennon, including new exhibits to be displayed to the public for the first time such as Lennon's Rickenbacker 325 natural wood and the handwritten lyrics of Woman. Yoko Ono will attend the opening ceremony."

The URL is:
http://www.taisei.co.jp/release/2000/aug/aug03.html

admin · Post by **admin** » Sun Aug 13, 2000 6:51 pm

I am inclined to agree with you Tuck. There are featues of the wood grain on the body that, in spite of the poor quality of the photos, seem consistent across the pictures.

craig910 · Post by **craig910** » Mon Aug 14, 2000 9:40 am

It does indeed appear to be the same guitar - this is pretty exciting since John's guitar hasn't been photographed/examined in many years, is it possible there are some additional photos at different angles that were taken at the same time as this one?

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Aug 14, 2000 9:44 am

I think it is highly likely that there were several photos taken each time Lennon's guitar was made available to photographers. What Lennon guitar enthusiast would be satisfied taking only one photo from one angle? Photo shoots like this one don't come up everyday. With any luck these additional photos will surface one day.

terry · Post by **terry** » Mon Aug 14, 2000 5:07 pm

Gentlemen,

My two cents.

(Thanks to the moderators for their technical assistance.)

admin · Post by **admin** » Tue Aug 15, 2000 5:20 am

Tomcat: Thanks for your thorough work on examining the woodgrain of Lennon's 325. I have certainly noticed what appear to be disrepancies in the appearance of the grain in the photos you have presented. At the same time, some creedence should be given to difference that might be expected following the sanding of the surface of the body which is likely to have occurred in the refinishing after stripping of the previous black finish. If you remove the colour and invert the photo colour, the result is two ugly looking images that highlight the grain. I have posted these below. My eye is drawn toward many areas that look different, however, there are two areas that appear to be similar. The first is the pattern of the more pronounced, perhaps deeper, grain in the upper body with a pattern of grain markings at approximately a 45 degree angle moving left to right. I see evidence of this pattern in the April 1962 and Bacon and Day 1994 photos. The second area of similarity is in a grain pattern forming two bands that moves horizontally just above the line formed by the top edge of the three pickups. I see the remains of this pattern in the 1994 photo. Admittedly I may be looking too hard for these similarities, however, making some allowance for the sanding I think that these markings are still evident.

terry · Post by **terry** » Wed Aug 16, 2000 11:07 am

Peter,

Many thanks for your compliments, and for your technical assistance with this board -- to say nothing of all the many excellent scans and webphotos of John Lennon's 1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri that you have made available to all on your award-winning websites, and now this forum.

But with all due respect, how can simply sanding the guitar completely erase the single most identifying feature of the guitar, the thick dark woodgrain tiger stripes running parallel to the neck/strings near the edge of the guitar body, and turn them into weak curvy loops running diagonal to the neck/strings up to 20 degrees or more?

If it can be established that the original thick dark woodgrain tiger stripes running parallel to the neck/strings near the edge of the guitar body (especially the most visible stripe) are not simply surface artifact, but are so thoroughly and deeply embedded in the guitar body wood that they extend all the way through the thickness of the body straight to the back of the guitar along the sides of the body, then we may draw some pretty strong conclusions:

1) The dark woodgrain tiger stripes could not be erased by any amount of sanding. Even if the front of the guitar body were to be sanded/planed/ground completely off the guitar, exposing the inner guitar body cavity (such as a light show body without its lenses), those dark woodgrain tiger stripes would still be embedded and remain very visible in the sides of the guitar body wood.

2) The direction of the woodgrain would remain constant, regardless of how much wood were to be removed off the front of the guitar body.

3) The sanding theory would then be invalidated and belong to the realm of wishful thinking.

But is there any photographic evidence which shows that the dark woodgrain tiger stripes (especially the most visible stripe) are indeed so thoroughly and indelibly embedded in the guitar body wood that they spill over the edges of the guitar body straight to the back of the guitar along the sides of the guitar body?

I believe there is.

larrywassgren · Post by **larrywassgren** » Wed Aug 16, 2000 8:34 pm

All these photos are great and they are all of the same guitar, John's '58 325. I've been looking at these photos and more for years. It's
true that the woodgrain looks different from one
photo to the next, but it is always there. The light and angle at which the photo is taken makes these grains stand out differently. Some photos highlight certain grains and others do not. If you have doubts about this, look at the photo of John's '58 in the Japanese Rittor book(p.116) and the photo from The Bacon and Day book(p.19) and compare the headstocks. It is absolutely the same guitar. I do not have the capability to post these photos here, but if anyone else cares to zoom in on these photos and show blow-ups of the headstock it will clearly show these are the same guitars. Why wouldn't they be? Lennon had the guitar in his possession since the fall of 1960. Even if someone thought they could pull a
switch and walk away with Lennon's guitar, where
would they have found another to swap? At the most, there were eight of these produced. I've been looking for one for twenty + years with no luck. So that theory won't work. And the idea
that someone could build a fake close enough to pass off as an original with all the correct hardware, that idea doesn't work either. It is
definitely Lennon's original '58 325 in all these photos.

admin · Post by **admin** » Wed Aug 16, 2000 9:34 pm

Larry: I agree that these photos are of the same instrument and concur that the angle at which photographs are taken and the lighting conditions can dramatically alter perceptions. Your argument that there are a limited number of 325's is also interesting and strengthens your position. The Bacon and Day and Rittor photos are of the same guitar, of course, because they are the same photo with the same shadow markings, albeit at different resolutions. I have taken the liberty to post the headstocks below as you have mentioned them in your post.

larrywassgren · Post by **larrywassgren** » Thu Aug 17, 2000 11:13 am

Peter, Thanks for posting the photos. But these
are both from the same photo and can't be used for
comparison(the guitar at this point has the replaced white nut). The photo of John's guitar on the floor on page 116 is the one to use for comparison. This is more than likely the first photo taken of John's guitar at the factory. The
'swirling' grain in the headstock is clearly evident in this photo and is exactly the same as the photo on page 117. I have blown the photo up from page 117 and you can clearly see a lot of black paint was left on the guitar during the refinish again from black to blonde. Especially
in the 'scooped' out area for the Kauffman(Bibsby). This is just more evidence that it is truly Lennon's original '58 325. To think that anyone could make a perfect repro with correct
black paint left in the finish is not being realistic. Ron DeMarino did a good job getting this guitar back to blonde and was smart to not sand away too much wood to get rid of all the black. I would imagine he was afraid of sanding
through the guitar. It's too bad he didn't leave
the original pickgaurd, tuners, nut and screws on
the guitar. It's also too bad he didn't take a couple hundred photos of the guitar when it came in, and all through the refinishing process. I guess during the late 70's this wouldn't have been as popular a topic as it is today. He didn't
know the history of that guitar very well, like a lot of people he thought the guitar was originally
black(as first seen in the USA on the Sullivan show). He tried to convince John to stick with black but he definitely wanted it back to the original color. Ron refinished a '59 Rickenbacker
335 for me so I spoke to him about John's guitar a
few times. He was really proud of the fact that he put John's '58 back to the original color, and also that he had made friends with John and Yoko.
Ron and his wife had been to The Dakota for dinner
several times. The main topic would be family and
friends, then probably guitars. He also said the next project was going to be refinishing John's Casino back to sunburst, unfortunately that never
came about because of what happened in December of
'80.

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu Aug 17, 2000 2:36 pm

Larry: Sorry for my lame comments regarding your earlier post. I didn't think it would make sense that you would be comparing these same photos, so thanks for pointing that out. Very interesting observations about the traces of black paint and information with regard to Ron DeMarino's involvement and refinishing technique. I will try not to fall asleep at the switch again. It would seem that will DeMarino did not sand much from the area near the Bigsby, he was somewhat more aggressive in his refinishing of the upper body. If you are able to send the photo from Page 116 it would be nice to post it here.

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu Aug 17, 2000 8:37 pm

Larry: I thought I would post the photos to which you referred in your posts under this topic. The first is the 1958 image of John Lennon's 1958 325 Capri from Rittor (page 116) and the second is a 1994 image of Lennon's 1958 325 Capri after the modifications were made from Rittor (page 117 and Bacon and Day (1994, page 16).

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Thu Aug 17, 2000 9:37 pm

The grey /ghosting of the black in the tailpiece area is caused by a lack of knowledge on how to strip a guitar.
It is blatantly obvious that the refinisher used a chemical stripper to do the job.When using a chemical stripper ,this softens the finish and in effect melts it.When you wipe it off ...you are smearing minute particles into the open endgrained pores.I'll bet the cutaways and the butt look the same.Only the face and the back are clean.
The endgrain that is on the headstock (the tip and the area between the nut and the E tuners)will have black in the pores also.
If this would have been done by me or anyone that worked for me,it would have been blistered off.The finish is heated (but not to the point of setting the material on fire-about 120 degrees to 150 degree and then the old paint can be pealed off like the skin of a grape.
I only use stripper on guitars where they have already been stripped using a chemical stripper.It is almost impossible to remove the paint particulates from the pours once this has been done .A rag and a suitable solvent and a fast solvent can be used to attempt to remove the rest ...but you will never get it all out .

Too bad.
Me...I'd have it resprayed in what ever the original paint material was and call it 'Historically correct'.Even though JL wanted it refinished.

larrywassgren · Post by **larrywassgren** » Thu Aug 17, 2000 10:29 pm

Peter, No problem about the two headstock photos,
I've found myself comparing the same photos too.
Thanks for showing the 'before and after' shots from the Rittor book(and Bacon and Day). Although they are small, you can still see the grain in the headstock is the same. Looking at the photos in the books with a magnifying glass really makes it clear these are photos of the same guitar. The Rittor photo of the '58 on the floor really has an angle to it, while the Bacon and Day photo is a straight on shot. It makes the grain in the body look different in both photos. Plus the refinishing and sanding of the top had to change the grain slightly, depending on how much was sanded off the top. Mark, you have to remember the '58 325 was refinished back to natural about 25 years ago and possibly your
technique was not available back then? Even if it were being done today, I would have a hard time
heating up this priceless guitar to 150 degrees and hoping the kindling point wasn't 140. Also, the back is only 1/8 inch thick and probably wouldn't take the heat. Ron probably had a difficult assignment, to return a guitar from black back to the original natural finish. Lennon loved the end result and that's what really counts. Comparing the two photos, I prefer
the look of the guitar today rather than the way it looked on the floor in '58. It's got a cool
'played' look to it. All it needs is an original aged gold pickgaurd, slot-head screws, wide black nut and hex tuner bushings to really make it complete. It would be nice if Ron DeMarino would
give the original cracked pickgaurd back. That would look correct on the guitar.