Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The headstock looks off to me too, especially when you look at the back and reference the spacing and position of the keywinds to some reference photos. Plus, the headstock looks painted?

"it looks like a great one for the Wilczynski treatment"
I'm hoping for the Minutaglio treatment: buy it, restring it, play it.

John, have you no sense of adventure?

My bandsaw is in need of exercise...

"John, have you no sense of adventure? "

Ok, let's cut it up and make a Combo 600 Lightshow.

You wanted adventure - take them apples!

Paul, I dunno about it being factory left-handed, I can't buy into that just yet....but I see where you're coming from.

These guitars would have had to be purpose-built instruments from a construction standpoint no matter what direction they pointed, issues like the shape of the neck where it attatches to the body and the body itself in relation to the cutaways. A Mirror-image headstock by itself doesn't make much sense to me for it is only for aesthetic purposes only and wouldn't affect the guitar's playability either right or left handed.

As I said earlier Fender was the only one doing a mirror-image lefty in the 50s, Gibson simply flipped their neck due to it's asymmetrical design. Rickenbacker's lefty necks were right-handed and flipped on the hollow-body and neck-thru models until the late 80's....

Anything is possible, but what we see on this guitar goes against the grain of what they did with everything else. While maybe not lengthened or shortened, to my eye it does look narrower and the tuners seem to be spaced differently then most of these Combos that we see. Who knows..

Oh yeah, the wear on the body plate and the nut (to me) looks like it was from a right-handed player.....

John M, while we're at it, let's make it a slant-fret, too...

John S, you make a pretty strong case, and you're a much more experienced Rick historian than me...

In any event, this is interesting material for speculation!

This looks to me like the headstock has just been chopped up.

If you compare the headstock to a normal one, the high part on the left is about where the low part would have normally been. It looks like they then lowered the tuners & reshaped the sides to confuse everybody (and plugged the old holes & repainted it).

The headstock of the Combo 800 above is probably not the best for comparison, as it has an abnormally large truss cover. This one is a bit more normal:

Combo Headstock

Certainly some funky stuff going on with this one. Maybe somebody took the Gerry Marsden approach to fitting it into a small case.

"...Maybe somebody took the Gerry Marsden approach to fitting it into a small case..."

LOL!

"The headstock of the Combo 800 above is probably not the best for comparison, as it has an abnormally large truss cover."................

That's not the first time someone's said I have an abnormally large truss cover!

That's why you rent Chrysler 300s when you come here, Graham.....LOL!!!!!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, over 3-Grand for this one.

3 grand + maybe $2k of work. I'm surprised.

I agree John. Total resto on this one.....

I would estimate about 1K for restoration...These are pretty simple with no binding to deal with. The peghead will need to be grafted on the end, a refret and possible refinish, but it looks as though the body is still original and may be alright...