Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Yes

Actually Lars, the new tuners are similar to, although interchangeable with the originals, which were Klusons.

That's a white white bass. Real nice looker even for 32 years old. Looks well taken care of.

Well, I'll try to help, Ben. I think $1000 is fair for that bass. It's in great shape, but it just missed having a lot of the desireable features that went away during '73: checker binding, crushed MOP full-width inlays, toaster, etc. With those features and in equal shape, the price would likely double.

Well I drove 60 miles and finally played this bass. It's a '74 Mapleglo.
http://www.gbase.com/Powered/GearDetails.aspx?Dealer=45c9c7fe-27d8-4359-b509-393c19e5856a&Item=1522714
It has a wonderful feeling neck and plays like a dream but I think it has too many negatives that go along with it. First of all it supposedly has had an "invisible" fret board repair. There was some separation of the fret board from the maple on the E side from the nut down about 3/4" long. It was not invisible you could not feel it. Second of all the tuners were Rickenbacker replacements and whoever did the replacing didn't know what they were doing. One of the screws on the E tuner was broken off in the headstock. Also they had filled the tuner holes with body filler perhaps and then redrilled to accept the obviously smaller tuners. The ferrules were also much smaller than the originals because there were larger depressions where the originals were. The neck had very noticeable relief in it. Probably around the 7th fret maybe. Also they told me that before the "invisible" fret board repair was done the truss rods were removed and straightened. The neck however had pretty low action and played very nicely...much narrower and thinner than my '05 4003. The finish on the body was OK I guess for the year. It had the typical dings and dents but nothing major. But for $1700 I had to make myself step away from the vintage Rick bass. I'm afraid the neck may go "POW" at some point. It sure did play much, much better than my '05....

You did the right thing. WAY too many issues for the price!

I agree. And, the pickguard screws are not original...

My '74 came with the covered back Grover tuners, so I would have to say new holes were drilled to install the tuners currently on it. Mine is also a July of '74, # NG 4232. I only paid $750 a few years back.

Yes....I have seen '74s with closed back Grovers and some produced later in the year with the larger open Rick tuners. This bass was a mess though. I can't see anyone paying that kind of money for a bass in such shape. Also the tailpiece was lifting about an 1/8" and the strap buttons were changed. This bass however did have the red dot markers on the side of the neck that I like but I'll find another.....

Not that it matters Chris, but I think this one came with Klusons (similar to the modern ones with Rickenbacker logo). You can tell by the offset of the A-string tuner. In this case the A and D tuner are more or less in line, whereas with Grovers the A tuner is higher (closer to the crest).

Ben, I think you did the right thing, you'll find another!

Whether it came with wavy Grovers or the reverse tuners, it sounds like a previous owner fitted it with those over-sized Schallers(or the over-sized Grovers) that required the post holes be drilled out.

Too bad...this one looked nice from the pix, but $1700.00 is kinda steep even if it were nice.

Actually after going there and looking at it the pictures looked better. The holes were drilled out and filled so they could be re-drilled smaller.
Maybe they were drilled out a previous time.