Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

620's fake. The neck isn't a through neck, you can see on the back of the body that it doesn't carry on. on my 620/12, the heel is also level with the body on the back. The headstock is the wrong shape. Also, I've never seen a black trc with white lettering. I'd avoid.

S**t! I feel as though I've betrayed someone by overlooking the fact that the "620" at issue has a set neck instead of a through neck! Sorry, guys. As for the headstock shape, yes, I had "sniffed" something funky. However, black TRCs with white lettering are genuine Rickenbacker articles, a possible exception thereto being the one hereabove - unless, like I said, recent TRCs, either black or white, have a slightly different lettering. Anyone?

Good eye for detail, Sergio!
That radius on the bottom portion of the letters is present in the mid 1970's. All of mine have it starting from 1976.

I have a 2002 right here and it looks like the old ones. If a change was made it would have been very recently.

Thanks, Ted. Well, those two TRCs resting on the "620" guitar really look like they could be counterfeits. John?

Part of one of my 2004 guitars' logo (plexi)...

Sorry to join up so late...

The two TRCs are fakes. The lettering is too thin, too rigid, the details like the blend are wrong, but most of all, they appear to be solid-colored pieces of plastic that are silkscreened on the front (first-surface).

Of course, genuine TRCs are either raised letter and tampo-printed on the front, or cut acrylic, silkscreened on the back side (second surface).

Also, the "MADE IN USA" looks disproportionately large.

YES!

Thanks, Paul. Actually, there is one further dead giveaway re those TRCs: the narrow side surface on both of them is upright, whereas on a legit Rick TRC it is lightly tumbled (I hope I'm using the right word).

The term you are looking for, Sergio, is "mold draft". The sides of an injection-molded TRC tilt inward at the top (it is tough to explain without drawings...), and the back edge is much sharper than the front edge. The draft is to facilitate the ejector pins pushing the part from the mold during a molding cycle. If there was zero draft (vertical sides), the part could hang up in the mold, leading to potential part damage and excessive wear on the mold itself.

There are other giveaways to genuine TRCs which show up on close inspection: the sprue mark where the mold cavity was filled and subsequently the part was broken free, and the knockout pins, which turn up as 3/16" diameter circles on the back side of the part. I don;t have any molded TRCs handy at my desk, but these could be found either on the part or (in the case of a part like the TRC--simple, with a flat cross-section) they could be on the sprue instead.

You might also see the areas of the backside immediately behind the raised letters: these will exhibit "sinking" as the thicker plastic in that area shrinks more as it cools, keeping the back from being absolutely flat. But, it's the back, so who cares?

So will the sale get pulled?

It appears that the seller has ended one of the auctions early and another has been removed.

There is still a "free" black one that goes with the 360 being sold.

Many thanks for the explanation, Paul. Makes perfect sense.
So, was the seller indeed clueless or was he trying to push counterfeit TRCs (and a fake 620!)on unsuspecting potential buyers? And yes, the (white) TRC on the 360 is fake too.

I just caught this thread. I was the high bidder before the auction was pulled. GOOD EYES GUYS.

The seller contacted me prior to the auction being pulled to see "which color I wanted". I'll pass.

If I had to vote, I'd say seller=perpetrator. The chance to make a killing in a hot market with a cheap silk screen was too good to pass up.