Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Mark - You're right, that's not charactered at all. My 360/12FG is more charactered than that. It's still a beautiful instrument of course, but I agree that not ONE instrument touted (and priced) as charactered should be allowed out the door looking like that.
BTW - I saw how your comments were received over at the corp site. Cackling yes men...

I've always thought that charactered wood guitars(flames and/or quilting) don't sound as good personally. They don't seem to resonate as well.

Mark,You're right,660's have been disappointing, I too have one with plain wood and hardly much flame,these are my favorite models,I waited 18 months and paid a lot of money and was gutted when the guitar finally arrived..I just hope the the 660 Amber Fire Glo's are better..

"I would not be disappointed if my figured maple Rickenbacker 660 had no flames or quilting."

... a perfect contradiction in terms.

If the 660 weren't marketed primarily as having charactered maple then we wouldn't be having this discussion. The RIC site doesn't say "only a few" 660s will have charactered maple.

So the question is: Does "charactered maple" mean flames, quilting or some other figuring other than standard grain. If you by wood at a retailer and it says figured maple, will it all have the flame, quilting or something other than the standard grain?

Yep it will and everybody here knows it. In the official item description for the 660 and 660/12 is states very clearly:

"The Model 660 and 660/12 feature a charactered Maple cutaway body based on an innovative design from the 1950's"

I don't see anything in there about "only a few" and your guitar has none at all. It's still a lovely instrument, but perhaps if the figure/no-figure aspect is simply going to be a "luck of the draw" situation, the ad copy should be modified to reflect reality as it is currently quite misleading in this case.

The work "charactered" does mean something to the consumer.
On the Rickenbacker site they display a 660MG that looks "charactered".
Granted this is advertising, and no two pieces of wood look alike, but the photo they show represents what the company knows the public understands the word "charactered" to mean.
Flame, Quilt, Curved Grain, Burl etc....

As I said before: There is no definition of "charactered" that fits my guitar.

I remember last year, I think, Music Zoo had a KILLER 660 BBR.... I wish I saved the pic.

Not to fan the flames any higher, but I'd be disappointed too.
My FG 4000 has more interesting grain.

There's a Monte 660 pic posted in the Model of the Week thread with quite plain looking grain, though the burst finish is nothing short of spectacular!

This is a 'regular production' 360 that I have...


Amazing grain pattern and flame too!

While that has a beautiful grain patter, Peter, it isn't exactly what I'd call flamed.

It doesn't catch it well in the photo Kris, but it shimmers flame all over in real life, you can see it a bit in the bottom photo.

I have a simple solution; in the next catalog and the website version of it, we'll just remove "charactered". It IS a very select Maple used on these instruments, in any case, but if I do this we won't have to have this kind of discussion.

Or as I said before, we could just switch to plastic.

Or as I said before, we could just switch to plastic.


_________-

What kind of plastic???

Charactered plastic! ;-P