#s in my rick

rkbsound · Post by **rkbsound** » Thu May 24, 2001 5:24 pm

If I remove my pickguard on my 1966 335 I see a hand-written (in red) 345 F written on the wood. There's also a small "4" written under it. It looks like the 4 is written in pen or pencil. Any ideas what these mean? Just curious.

admin · Post by **admin** » Thu May 24, 2001 10:29 pm

Mr. Phelps: There has been much discussion about the "true" meaning of the writings in the cavity of Rickenbackers. While I am sure that the writings have meaning, the relationship between what is written and the guitar that is finally produced is often dificult to determine if any. Some guitar bodies that may have begun with one model in mind seem to have been switched by adding or deleting a specific feature depending on a particular order. I hope that Mark will tell us about his writings.

markthemd · Post by **markthemd** » Fri May 25, 2001 8:11 am

The writings in the bodies occurred long before the necks were even glued in sometimes.

Dick Burke -woodshop foreman ,was the 'author'more often than not.

The felt pen markings are always his ,although as thing would happen ,these could also be in pencil.

The signatures were from the crew in the finishing building .They were the prep sanders (known in the plant as #30 sanders...to this day I call prep sanding -#30 sanding)

The signatures under the bridges (on basses) are Maria or Cecilia .They were the two women that rubbed the paste wood filler into the fretboards and the skunk stripes on the necks.

LC was Laura Clark ,she was the shop 'Mom' ...she had been there on and off since the early days .She did lots of things ,but if you see her initials it usually means ,she scraped the binding .This was after the sealer and color coats are sprayed ,and before the clear coats.She could scrape the excess color off in seconds and she taught all the new scrapers.
The crazy thing about her was her chain smoking and with all that celluloid around in minute particles ,I am amazed she never started a fire!

In the wood shop it was a different story.

The rest of the writing is all pre buffing ,as it is ALL under the clear coats.Mu name is in thousands of instruments .

I will admit to a seasonal cartooning from about 1974 ...in November of that year I got bored signing my name ...If you see Hats with big buckles ,Shoes with big buckles ,Pilgrims or Turkeys drawn...that was me .
There are several Six/Twelve double neck that have Turkeys drawn in side the control cavity.

They must still be there....Bill Meyers caught me and I was told to stop ....in the woodshop there were lots of cartoons being drawn,of many subjects.
But that is a different story.

rkbsound · Post by **rkbsound** » Sat May 26, 2001 8:35 am

According to the production numbers of the 1966 335, it appears that only 442 or so were made (I found this on the vintage link on the Home page). It seems as if all of the production numbers for all models (except the 360) are very low. Are these numbers accurate? It seems there must be more vintage Ricks out there than those numbers indicate.

markthemd · Post by **markthemd** » Sat May 26, 2001 9:24 am

No ....that is it .

When I worked there from 1972 to 1976 ...we made 50% basses .
Most of these were 4001's
per day there was an output of 40 to 45 and we were cracking them out .
There were days where we hit 55 to 60 ,but that was rare.
This was 5 days per week .

In the guitars ,we made 360,330 360-12 ,325 mostly
then there were the bolt on neck guitars ,the 481 480,and the 430

the rest were far and few between .When we made any of them,they were done in batches of 5 to ten.

Double necks in bursts of 15

but months would go by before you saw these again.

Thanks to the success of Yes' Fragile LP ....the 4001 ruled.The 4000 paled in comparision .I never understood why it did not sell .
I felt it was the correct model less one pickup and the controls ...it would have been easy to modify and 'upgrade'
perhaps the parts were not that easy to come by for retailers .

In the sales of Gibson Les Pauls ,we outsold The Deluxe over the Standard ,and then the Deluxes would get 'upgraded' to Standard specs at a later date.This was a common occurance.

jazzsmith · Post by **jazzsmith** » Mon Nov 19, 2001 6:19 am

I checked out the cavity in my '67 370 O.S. and found, besides the signatures of "Pete" and "Rena(?)",inscribed "365OSX", in pencil and marking pen. Also "NAT" (it is a Mapleglo). I know that guitar bodies that start life as 365's can become 370's and I know that the OS refers to Old Style (WBBS), but what does the "X" mean - experimental? Special order?

markthemd · Post by **markthemd** » Mon Nov 19, 2001 8:46 am

Dick Burke used the whole alphabet inside guitars when marking them .NONE of these felt pen markings means anything except a woodshop to finishing building tracking system.THAT'S ALL.

There are NO protoypes out in the field .JH has them all in the factory .

Any 360 body type that can by tailpiece or pickup variation can have any number of 300 series number inside it .The OS is oldstyle the X was the bathc code .Plain and simple .The same day might have seen T and M as a batch .I could never figure it out and I was the guy who checked in the guitars (for about one year) as they came in .

A funny note ....I am 6 foot 1 inches tall and when I worked there I weighted about 155 pounds.
Dick called me "Baby Huey" after the cartoon (Harveytoons) go figure that one out!Same logic as his coding if you ask me .

jazzsmith · Post by **jazzsmith** » Mon Nov 19, 2001 11:37 am

Thanks a lot for the first hand info...I'm 5 foot 11 and weigh 145. I wonder what my nickname would have been.

aladams · Post by **aladams** » Wed Nov 21, 2001 6:19 am

Hi...I have 2 initials inside the body of my 330/12, under the pickguard/control knobs, and they either read: CJ or CT....any info on who or what this may mean? I believe this guitar was made in the early 80's...Thanks, so much! AL A.