4004 On E-Bay - Thoughts?

[rickenbrother]

Ian, the 4004 in the ad is the original Cheyenne. It was replaced by Cheyenne II, so the original was discontinued sometime around '97. The Original Cheyenne and Laredo models did have maple fingerboards.

[ianmatth]

So the pickup back from the finger board design on the 4004 series is pre-1998, talk about some really old pictures on the Rickenbacker site. For some reason I thought they were making them that way in the early 2000s. Wonder exactly what year they switched the 4004s to bubinga fingerboards.

[bassduke49]

To clarify, the pickup positions on the Cheyenne and Laredo went to the lower positions about 1999-2000. This was around the time of the introduction of the Cii and the switch to the bubinga fretboard on both models, but we have seen examples with lowered pickups and maple fretboards (Dane?). In the rare occurrence of a broken truss rod, it was found that pushing the rods out was nearly impossible without a cavity at the body end of the neck. This happened to Jeff Scott on his MG Cii (now mine), and the instrument was sent back to RIC for repair. The factory ended up cutting two rounded routes between the fretboard and the neck pickup, replaced the truss rod, and refinished the bass. After that episode, RIC decided to return the pickups to the original positions (about 2004-05?). For more information, check "Model of the Week" series!

[ianmatth]

That was what I thought because the both the 1998 and 2005 4004 series have the pickups right next to the fingerboard, and I thought the 4004s that had the pickups off the fretboard were made between those years. You'd think Rickenbacker would use recent pictures, but apparently not.

[bassduke49]

It appears since RIC rearranged their website back in '05-'06(?), they haven't done anything on updating the photos on the catalog section, and have not done a new poster/catalog either (that I've seen; I could be wrong, feel free to correct me). But then, they've had bigger fish to fry, namely a huge backlog and ramping up the new CNC machines, etc. They're really crankin' right now, so I'd say leave 'em be.