The Rickenbacker Page - Closed?

[krick]

Anyone know why The Rickenbacker Page is listed as closed?

http://www.rickenbacker.com/dealers.asp?state=NC

[ajish4]

Mine comes up as the FIND A DEALER PAGE.

[krick]

When I clicked on North Carolina, it showed The Rickenbacker Page/CLOSED

[ajish4]

Sorry Kevin,

I get this. I wonder.

"Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e07'

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Syntax error converting the varchar value 'ENDLY ' to a column of data type int.

/recent_shipments.asp, line 129 "

[krick]

I get that message when I clicked on link of the individual dealer but on the list for NC dealers, it shows three including The Rickenbacker Page/CLOSED.

[ajish4]

Odd,

His website is still up.

Perhaps he's winding down?

[cjj]

Yeah, I can see the info on the RIC website. I wouldn't be surprised if Mike is getting out of the business, what with the economy and all. I don't know if RIC requires dealers to maintain a certain volume or something like that, but if so, I'd bet it's been pretty tough the last few years for a smaller dealer. I know one dealer I used to do some business with in Boise, ID, Old Boise Guitar, closed down completely a while back...

[doctorwho]

It's been a while since I have been in contact with Mike (I bought my 730L and 360CW new from him) , but my impression at seeing how his website has 'shrunken' over the years is that he is indeed cutting back on the business.

[jwilli]

I bought my first "Internet" purchase from Mike in '97. It was a Turquoise 360/V64. He's always been a stand up guy and a friend. I have only heard great things about him in all of these years. Great reputation. Period. Although his website may not show it, he has ton of Ricks in stock, vintage and new. He has never been the type to get on boards to tout himself or his business. Word of mouth meant a lot.
You will have to ask him what happened.

According to his website: "We are emphatically in business.".

[krick]

I noticed today that Mike's business is no longer listed on RIC's list of dealers.

I believe that Mike's store is open but he is no longer an authorized RIC dealer. I will be disappointed if this is the case and I would be very surprised to hear that Mike intentionally did anything to cause this.

[nukebass]

His website states that he now ships anywhere, so I guess if anybody international needs new parts, he would be the person to buy them from. The downside is that anything bought "new" has no warranty and anybody who had anything on order will have to reorder from another dealer (I'm assuming all new orders got cancelled).

[cjj]

It's true. Apparently RIC dropped him as a dealer for something to do with retailer requirements, but he has not been able to get in touch with them about it yet to see if he can be reinstated...


He did say he has over 200 new and used Ricks in stock, plus a lot of parts, so he'll be around for a long time, and may change focus to something besides Ricks...

[nukebass]

It's true. Apparently RIC dropped him as a dealer for something to do with retailer requirements, but he has not been able to get in touch with them about it yet to see if he can be reinstated...

That sounds odd (the getting in touch with part). I wonder what the second side to the story is.

[cjj]

Dunno, he just said they had not returned emails or phone calls...