Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I can play that one too.

If I did play my g'tars...

Here's a shot of me and my '82 4003s at a band practice.


Now if I could get one in Fireglo...

Your picture is flipped.

whats with the reverse headstock? i thought only the c64s had that?

there is supposed to be an apostrophy (sp?) between the 64 and "s" i am bad at typing

Nope, the picture isn't flipped. I'm a lefty, and it's an 1982 4003S that I did a 'Wings' conversion to, so it's close to a 4001C64S, just not exactly.

Here's a pic of it before I stripped it, shaved the horns, made a replacement pickguard, put a toaster in the neck, faux walnut headstock wings, and put on replacement tuners and knobs. And I threw that ungly pickguard cover way back in the case!

Brian is yours wired for stereo by any chance? Man its wierd seeing a bass 2 years older than mine, with almost the exact same wood grain pattern. Its been about a year since I received my 4003S as a really cool present from my girl. I almost forgot what it looked like stock. The high out put pickups were promptly replaced with a vintage bas and a horseshoe, followed by the pickguard and knobs. The tuning keys were already swapped when I received it. If yours was still stock I think the only way to tell 'em apart would be that mines a righty. =)

Nolan, no mine is mono. It was basically stock when I received it, except for some horrible finish checking. I've never seen a Ric of any year check like this one was. You couldn't tell by the above pic, but it almost looked as if someone had used it for a doorstop in winter!

Wow, that's odd, I wonder why mine is wired for stereo. I hope someone could shed some light. When I got my S bass it was filthy. There was at least three inches of grime in the bridge and just about every screw hole, and the three way toggle wasn't working in the trebble position. The E tuner had bent slightly due to travel in an ESP bass case, so the wood had gouged up. The biggest shocker was the fret board. The previous owner had sanded off the clear coating and refretted it with medium/jumbo frets, and the nut was damaged. I think I've a few pics of it. It took a while to nurse this bass back to health.
I don't have any pics playing it yet, so I hope you don't mind me showing a couple of transition pics. Also I'm sorry if they're huge.

My '84 4001S looked like the bass above, till I painted it pseudo-MMT-style.

These were the shots the dealer sent my girlfriend
just before she bought it.
And this is how it remains today







Sorry if this takes forever to load guys.

Was ROS standard on a 4003S? I thought, like the 4001S, it would have mono only.

Ronn, you're correct, a 4003s would have been a factory standard Mono output.

they made a few s models with ROS ...

I guess I'm one of the off beat ones to have ROS on mine. The 4003S is pretty much my main bass after I retired my 83 4003JG that was always armed with stainless steel Rotosound strings. It was my first bass, a present from my dad when I turned 13. I remember several years later being in high school and having everyone in my music classes jealous and making fun of me because they didnt have one. In my junior year I ended up buying a 81 4001JG and used that for a few years before having to sell it, but I remember letting a kid in class play one day, and he wore a bracelet similar in style to my studded strap in the pics. To make a long story short he wore the clear coat off the size of a quarter. Not one of my shining moments. lol