Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I sent an e-mail to the BopKats web site requesting information on the Capri in the videos and I received a reply this afternoon.
I hope you have your barf bag handy.
Bob
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 06:42:16 -0800
From: jshaw178@yahoo.com
Subject: Fw: Bop-Kats guitar question
To: gkosilla@aim.com; telecatster@msn.com

hi,
as for that rick that jerry was playing, it was a capri, maybe a rare one because it had a double layer pickguard
and it had the f-hole. i bought this guitar after jerry traded it in at a local music store. jerry lives about ten minutes from me and we still talk about how stupid we were to let it slip away from us. i sold it to a guy who after having it for about two weeks spray painted day-glow orange over the fire-glow finish. i contacted him and he doesn't know what happened to it. i can't figure that out but that's what he said. he doesn't know what he did with it but he doesn't have it. no idea what serial number was. love your site.
r.t. mackey

...and this is why I refused to paint an original Light Show, Metalflake Red with a full-color illustration of a pot plant on the back, interwoven with the owner's name in a weird typeface...

We gotta think about our descendants.

I was hoping it was hiding under the owner's bed - the Bop-Kats still live about 45-60 minutes from me and I would've been over there so fast with a 20 megapixel camera....

Man, Mike, thanks for posting this vid, it is so cool on so many levels! I absolutely LOVE horrible old kinescopes from back in the day of the oldsters not "getting" rock-n-roll (Ted Mack's obvious amusement at these guys is typical of the '50s-early '60s "Establishment" entertainment types.) It is so neat to see a beautiful early Rick 325 used for pre-Beatles rock. I really dug the rhythm player's Gretsch Jet Firebird, too. Even the accordionist was with it (and let me tell you it's hard not to be L7 squeezing one of those things!) I think I'll break out the old 325JL tomorrow and play some early rock!

Seriously cool video. Interesting use of the vibrato, as well - he really throws that thing around!

Also noticed it had a single pickguard. Thats a '58.

Very cool guitar !

An early 60's band playing a 325 & a Gretsch Jet (albeit a Firebird), what a coincidence! That Kaufman seems to be staying in tune too. Another coincidence, October 9th is John Lennon's birthday...

The odd thing about this 325 is that the control plate isn't one that's been added to like Lennon's. The toggle switch is up the higher position where they were moved when the factory started making 4 control plates. A converted plate would have the toggle in the low position like V81, (and all the other '58 325's I've seen). I've never seen one like this with what looks more like a '59-'60 control plate on it.