Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

My 650 Dakota was relatively cheap. Cost me a bit over $700 with tax brand new in 2001. Still had some dust on it from the factory floor!

Back to copies - from what I recall seeing JH write the main reason to protect the copyright is to prevent a slew of knock offs and diluting the brand name. Once you let one slide then you have less of a case to claim copyright infringement when others steal the style.

Also some of these knockoffs get fitted with real Rick truss rod covers and get passed off as the real thing by unscrupulous sellers .

Every once in a while we hear of someone who discovers that their Rick is not a real Rick.

How many times have you looked at something, musical instrument or otherwise, that used to be great but changed over the years to the tune of corporate pressure or marketplace trends and wished it had not? Many other great companies have changed and long since ceased to exist. Seen any new Danelectros worth buying recently?

Bravo, Rickenbacker, for staying the course. I hope they knock every cheap faker right out of the market.

"Bravo, Rickenbacker, for staying the course."

Er, no offense, Jim, but is there another way of saying it?

Ryan makes an excellent point when he says "let' em design their own guitars"

Leo and Freddy hit a lot of homers in the early days, and neither had any formal design training. Beautiful stuff.

Ricks really started to show style when Roger Rossmeisl came on board. The design tradition that he re-interpreted lives on and the Rickenbacker instruments that draw upon this, will forever be classics in the truest sense of this oft-overused word.

Designing guitars is a tough calling, and there is not a design department anywhere that has done anything of the quality of the classic Rick look, the Tele, Strat, and for that matter, Jaguar and Jazzmaster, Jazz and Precision bass, in nearly a half-century.

Looking at typical Gibsons, Guilds, and Gretsches, one can see that despite their timeless looks, they are basically derived from acoustic flat and arched top instruments. (Obviously, I'm not talking about SGs, Firebirds, or any of the odd solidbodied failures that these manufacturers brought to the table to counter the success of Fender in this area.)

It would be very interesting to see what a professional product designer could do with the Rickenbacker line.

Ed it has nothing to do with a copyright ... it is a trademark issue ...

"How many times have you looked at something, musical instrument or otherwise, that used to be great but changed over the years to the tune of corporate pressure or marketplace trends and wished it had not? Many other great companies have changed and long since ceased to exist. Seen any new Danelectros worth buying recently?

Bravo, Rickenbacker, for staying the course. I hope they knock every cheap faker right out of the market."


Couldn't have said it any better myself.

I prefer "hanging in there", "keeping the quality up", "maintaining standards", "persevering", or possibly a hundred other, less hackneyed phrases.

Paul, you are right. And I'm going to play my Rickenbackers no matter how long it takes, until all the notes are free! ha ha ha

Whenever I see a company like this I always wonder why they just don't take a pencil and paper and make some sort of shape unique to them.

I mean, I know my Musicvox Spaceranger is basically a copy of a Les Paul Jr. but it definitely has an original shape at least!

One of my favorite guitars is the Rick Turner model 1 (made famous by lindsey buckingham). Beautiful guitar.

Rickenbacker has all this great design language (shark fin inlays, the slash sound hole, etc.) which a talented designer could do a lot with. The 4004 bass, IMO, lacks a lot of the rickenbacker desin cues. So to me, it's neither here nor there, it isn't "rickenbacker-esque" enough for me, yet it's still too ricky for someone that would play a more generic bass.

The experimental 4001 from the Smith book, is what I wished the 4004 looked like. Someday I want to get a 4004 and mod it to look like that.

As a fellow Dutchman, I understand Wouter. He just want to share it with us, so don't flame the man. Rickenbackers and their merchendise are very expensive over here - so there is truly a market for look a likes. I t took me several years to save money for a rick. Of course copying ain't right, but I think a factory like Fender has more problems with that. Maybe they should do it like Fender and Gibson and PRS: make a line in the far east and sell it for half the price. If you can't beat them join them!!!

But, who has a better name for quality: Fender, Gibson, or Rickenbacker?

With the law of supply and demand, especially in markets where an initial item cost is deemed expensive and the product is scarce, you will nearly always find a copy of that product on the market.

The individual has two choices. To save and wait and buy an original, or to buy a copy. The practical solution for many is the latter, as fiscal policy usually determines outcome.

While this board is not the place to discuss or promote copies, it will always be a topic that arises simply because an individual wants a Rickenbacker and can't afford one.

Without seeming too harsh on any said individual, the best advice this board should offer in these situations, is to promote the real thing without perceived personal insinuation. We need to encourage those less fortunate, that, even if their only practical option is a copy at present, a real Rickenbacker and participation in this forum would be welcomed.

I dare say the majority here started playing with a copy of an instrument. Let's not cast aside those that have the passion, but not yet the means...

Jeff - thatns for the correction bout trademark vs copyright. I knew that!

I think Wints has a good point. I would only add that we should collectively stress that the real think will outpace a copy in most cases in any subject - quality, value, etc.

My original point was not to bash the copiers as much as to state my appreciation for Rickenbacker's sense of their own product in the marketplace. I know there is a demand for a lot of their products, if they licensed the CS, V63, C64 and other models to be made overseas, they could flood the market with decent quality models at a "reasonable" price. They chose not to do so, as a result, these instruments remain of high value to those of us that really appreciate them. And, IMO, Ric's retail pricing for their new models is not at all expensive, not in comparison to the other guys top models.

Someday my CS will come in...

My first guitar was this really weird looking japanese guitar, and then for my 11'th birthday I got a Domino teardrop shaped guitar, but was Vox making guitars in 1980?

I dig what Eastwood guitars are doing, for the most part, making copies of wacky guitars that are no longer made but that play way better. I have their "hi-flyer" and while it's nowhere near the quality of a ric, it's a funky fun guitar!

I'll buy something like hat for my nephew way before I'd buy some sort of copy guitar.