Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Mine from around 1986 has a rosewood/maple(?)/rosewood sandwiched body:

So is mine, though descriptions I find on the construction used never seem to agree about the type of wood used for that little stripe in the sandwich. Whatever it is, it's pretty!



Most descriptions also go on at length about how heavy they are, but I really didn't noticed. Mine replaced a Rickenbacker 250, which was also a fairly hefty block of body wood. I actually liked the sound of the 250 better and believe they are much better guitars than they get credit for. In my case, it was strictly a neck width problem that made me switch.

The original was made with a thin stripe of maple according to the book Beatles Gear. I would think the re-issues were the same. The store by me just got a used one in near mint shape. Two are available on Ebay (Buy It Now) for around $4,000 and these are the 86- versions. Not the new custom shop.

Any of those rosewood Tele's are stunning.
Wow.

Somewhere, I recall, is a website of photos showing how Fender makes "wood sandwich" guitars even in USA.

I wish they weren't so expensive. I love playing my Telecasters and it would be great to get my hands on one of these. It seems like a "knee-jerk" reaction to the Gibson Lennon guitar.

Yeah, sure, 'limited edition'... they make a new run of these rosewood Teles all the time and call it limited so they can jack up the prices...just go through music zoo's sold stock...

I just hope mine gets valuable enough to eventually trade it for a nice Fireglow 381. I can always buy another Tele that sounds good and looks decent. If folks are crazy enough to pay huge sums of money for rosewood Telecasters, I'll certainly help them out. I must admit though, that before I got it, I'd never seen anything on a Fender that I really considered fine woodworking. Nothing against Fenders, but they have always struck me as being rather utilitarian and unimaginative when it comes to construction.