Here you go, Collin, better pix of my Van Ghents. Note the finish missing where the Grover Rotomatic washers were. This guitar could be a candidate for professional refinishing, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm a stickler for original finishes. Besides, overall, this guitar looks better in person that in the pix!collin wrote:Nice guitar and story, Forrest.
I love Van Ghents. So chunky and funky they are cool.
Now the story of how I aquired the Van Ghents. A few years ago, I met a guy named Steve Beshears(sp?)who told me he'd worked for Rickenbacker. He had an almost MINT '64 365 with VG tuners. I asked about them and he told me they were original . After taking off my guitar's Grovers, I noticed the unmistakable elongated triangle impression of covered Van Ghents in the original finish, not to mention the three screw holes (center hole is for the machine's cover screw). I set about browsing eBay for a replacement set, but they were either 6-in-lines, or way more than I wanted to pay for them. Finally, a set of 3+3 VG's showed up, but they had the large plastic classical string barrels on them. Now having owned tons of Gretsch guitars, I'm intimately familiar with VG's. I know that the parts are quite interchangable, so I bought them (at a tenth of the cost of the non-classical set). A week later, a set of the lesser VG's came up (smaller white plastic buttons) but with the proper string barrels. I bought them for a song and then swapped the barrels out with the pearl button set. Voila! Instant '64, '65 spec keys! After lubrication and breaking them in with a few twists, I installed them and they work great!
