Birth of the Silver Reissue Case

[bluewhale]

Like others here, I was an avid reader of the alt.guitar.rickenbacker newsgroup before this forum started up. It was an exciting development, all of this new (to me) information coming together for the first time.

While cleaning house, I found a printout of the following discussion from March 1998 about reissue vintage-style silver cases. Thought some of you might be interested.

The thread began with ECMJ5866 asking, after the fact, why his or her new 1984 4001V63 came with a standard black case, and not the silver one. The question was directly addressed to Mr. Hall.

BobKat replied: ``The ’84 4001v63 did not come with the vintage case. I believe, though I may be wrong, that the first of the reissue silver cases were for the John Lennon series in 1989. After that, they were optional for some time, and then finally became standard in 1993 or ’94.”

John Hall (RIC CEO) replied: ``The earliest reissues did not have the vintage type case as the silver Tolex was not available. However, sometime later . . . don’t know exactly when . . . we were able to entice General Tire to make the material again and the vintage reissue case was born.”