Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

"Ted: A 425 would be full-scale. This is 3/4-scale."

Right you are Randy. I forgot about that scale thing. Thanks for the correction.

I'll give you $205 for it.

It is either a 1964 Rickenbacker 1000 or a 1964 Electro ES-16, without the TRC you'd have to get RIC to trace it to a shipping doc, if they have time. It's wired up like a 425 but it's definitely one of the two I've mentioned...'cause of the 18-fret neck.

The 900's and 950's have a different cut to the body, the short-scale 1000 and ES-16 are unique to this.

There's a capacitor connected to the switch. One position will etch glass and the other position is the regular full pickup.

I guess it's a 1000. what do you think???

Never saw this before...

That's a big switch

Is the P.U. original? It looks to clean for 1964.

Yes, it all looks legit to me...how 'bout a pic of the top of the p/up Dave?

Dave, Nice score! Good to see that there's still bargains to be had!

Here's my '64 ES-16 (DI-260). It cost me $30 and came with the original silver case. Very similar to your 1000. The toaster is in the bridge position, so it screams. My compensated bridge was missing when I got it. Somebody had replaced it with a yellow #2 pencil broken to length and wrapped with galvanized steel. I can always imagine an inbred sharecropper playing bottleneck blues on it. The original JG finish was nearly gone. Got a bad respray in the 1980's. This was main main guitar during my college years (1979-1983). I stripped the finish and played it with a raised letter Rick TRC. Didn't know that special strings were necessary, so it never played well. I couldn't play yet anyway, so I was mainly playing fuzztone noise through a Vox Royal Guardsman.

Nice Randy. It's funny, the store owner that I purchased it from said that he originally wanted it to use it as a slide guitar.

John, like this???

When I got mine, nobody knew what it was. There were no books or internet back then. A local 'vintage shop' said it was a Danelectro like the one Jimmy Page used for slide playing. I knew it was a Rick from the hardware and the case. I didn't understand why it was an Electro until the Smith book came out. Here's the headstock. It came with white button tuners. I'd like to get a proper refinish done (Curmudgeon?). Please excuse the dust!

"It came with white button tuners"

Like these Randy??

Dave: If you're an 'authenticity guy', I've got an original black knob that mine came with. Since one was missing I replaced them both. I'm not a big fan of 'vintage patina' anyway. I like my stuff to look new and unplayed. Let me know if you want it.