Worth a salvage job if the price stays low?

[revolver323]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-1974-Ricken ... sPageNameZ

[jwr2]

Take that big honking piece of wood off of the front and replace the weird knob and you have a perfectly fine bass ...

Why replace the bridge tailpiece assembly ... unlees you long to see tail lift on that bass ...

[ricosound]

Can you imagine even back in the day, having this bass in one hand and a drill in the other? The bridge mod is one thing, but I have seen some stupid attempts at finger rests over the years. This example while functional, adds nothing asthetically pleasing and leaves two holes right in the middle of everything

[prismacolor2]

They could have used the pickup surround holes for the, um, rest. - still, a few small things and that bass is in pretty good shape.

[revolver323]

Take that big honking piece of wood off of the front and replace the weird knob and you have a perfectly fine bass ...

Why replace the bridge tailpiece assembly ... unlees you long to see tail lift on that bass ...

That brass bridge annoys me almost as much as the ****** piece of wood. The Hipshot bridge is more aestheically pleasing.

However, only $100 more and it'll be the same price I paid for my 4001 Deluxe in 1972,

Now, if only it were a dot neck ...

[johnallg]

To illustrate that Ricks are still a good bargain, that $450 in '72 dollars is $2279 in '08 dollars. A 4003 "deluxe" can be had for $1600 or so, only lacking the CB and a plexi TRC for the molded one.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

[rickfan60]

Go for it. By the pictures, that is a perfectly fine bass. The mods are not a problem.

[loendmaestro]

Are those the kind of tuners that came on all '74s? My 74 has open back "full size" (for lack of a better description) tuners.

Are mine replacements? It did have a lot of miles on it when I got her....

[chrisdski]

I have a March 1974 with the open back tuners. They are stock. See my thread re: 1974 4001 red dot

[jwr2]

Neither my 73 or 74 4001 basses had grovers ... during that period they were putting but types of tuners on the basses they made ... personally I would never buy a bass with grovers ...