Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Could be a fake bridge and tailpiece but, while I haven't seen as much as some on these boards,I've never seen a fake 4000. I think the body and pickup are true.

S'ergio, I agree with the square string holes. Also the slots for the saddles are square on the ends. A true Rick bridge is rounded.

I agree....alarm bells should be ringing over this one.

Out of interest a '59 or '60 4000 with it's original tailpiece and bridge would look like this:



Even taking into consideration that it's been replaced, as Sergio pointed out, it's still terribly wrong.

I'm no expert on copies by a long shot, and I've never seen a copy horseshoe. But with all that's obviously wrong here, I'm not convinced this is really a Ric.

well this proves you CAN put round strings in a square hole

this is most likely a late 63+ not any earlier the headstock was wider on the 57-early63s cant see the heal .the routing ,trussrods,and heal could tell alot

I mentioned to the seller we were discussing the bass here and the possibility of it being a fake. He says he took it to two dealers and both made offers but, he felt he could get more on Ebay.

I still think it's a 63

The fact that the (genuine) saddles are dual-grooved is easy to explain: since those were pre-grooved and saddle gap on the fake saddle block was narrower than on a Rick one, string spacing on that particular bass had then to be corrected by cutting new, suitably spaced grooves on th saddles. And Ken (Joseph), you're absolutely right about the saddle slots.
I suspect we may be looking at a complete fake after all.

That's a lot of $$$ to pay for a horseshoe....

Well, I would think that if it's a fake the ric police will have it removed.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Just because certain things seem out of whack doesn't mean the body and pickup are NG.It's a dual truss rod ,single pickup, dot neck, horseshoe pickup bass. It doesn't make sense that somebody made just one fake. It would be too expensive.

Has anyone here even seen a faker 4000? I've seen dual truss fakes, 4001 fakes but, nothing like this.

Most of it is probably real, but the seller is certainly misrepresenting what he has. The date is definitely wrong.

Did you ask him why the bass has 4-inline tuners with two of them upside down on the D and G strings? And about the non-RIC bridge?

Also, as far as I can tell from the small pics, it looks like the horns are shaved down a la McCartney!

As far as what the seller represents, he's going by what the two dealers he showed it to told him.

You guys got me thinking too much on this. Now I'm starting to have my doubts. Too bad we scared JH off. I'm sure he could be definitive about the body and pickup that might be real as well as pickguard and knobs.

Anyway, what's bugging me now is I can't see the heel well in the photos. It should be square not, rounded I believe. Argh...

Ask for more photos. Who says it really IS a 4000? Maybe it is a 4001 copy with a 4000 pickguard on it? That whole bridge thing has me scratching my head.
Not to mention it is missing everything that could allow you to date it! I guess the heel is the last resort.

The heel would certainly help, but a good idea would come from the horseshoe bobbin. It should be black plastic with a thin upper and lower lip...if that hasn,t been changed out too of course. The upper horn looks like it has had a little sanding...like my green 64, but that body contour looks like the 60,s RM,s. As ever, good close pics of the routs/truss rods go a long way...

You could probably back out without penalty given the various things we found on it.