Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Brian: If I recall correctly, he speaks in terms of angle in degrees (i.e. 20-degree or 40-degree F-holes).

Well I guess that makes sense. However, I can tell time better than measuring degrees. That is if it's a digital clock.

I have DF and DG 1996's. Both have the later style style soundhole. We used to call it 1 o'clock. The hole is also different in size and shape to the earlier variety. The one on auction is definitely in with the earlier style soundholes (as are the other two DD I know of) I doubt that a DG could have the earlier style soundhole.

I got some more detailed pictures of the guitar. You can see the old style truss rod routes despite the poor picture quality. The body doesn't appear to be a 70's or 80's style. It is either a real 1996, or a really good knock off.

John: My '64 325 FG (2 o'clock F-hole, round heel) was serial #DG880. I destroyed the guitar in the late 1980's. At the time, I didn't know anyone who could have fixed the body damage (badly routed for Gibson mini-humbuckers, cracks from screws and stop tailpiece studs). All I have left is the remaining original hardware: the jackplate and the strap buttons!

7 bids

$3,150.00

Someone thinks its real. It's already out of my price range. I'm not to worried. I ordered the 1996. I'm sure I'll see it in...

Randy,
That sucks.I would have cried if it were my 64 325. The only option would have been to let Dale Fortune,Mark Arnquist or another Rickenbacker repair expert plug the holes/cracks and finish it black. Someone could have salvaged the neck and built a new body for. This is a somewhat tricky operation though.I'm not quite sure how John Hall views that level of restoration either.

I can't seem to shrink the pictures this guy e-mailed me small enough to fit it on this site.

Jonathan, if you e-mail the pics to me (my e-mail address is in my profile), I'll do the necessary tweaking to get them to a size to post.

Jonathan: The guitar was a wreck when I bought it in 1979. It was my first electric guitar and I was eighteen-years-old. Someone had stripped the FG finish and sealed it in clear. They stripped the fingerboard too. Then they crudely carved a hole where the center pick-up was for a Gibson humbucker. They installed a mini humbucker on either side of it. They also installed Grover tuners, a Gibson bridge and a stop tailpiece. The screws for the pick-ups and the studs for the bridge and tailpiece all split the face the guitar. Additionally, some of the internal braces were damaged and loose inside the body. It had a raised letter TRC from the 70's and a homemade pickguard. Back then there were no books or resources for identifying Rickenbacker guitars. I didn't know what I had till after I gave up on it. I wrote a letter to Rickenbacker at the time and they recommended buying a new guitar rather than attempting a repair. Today I know people from the Forum who could repair it. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980's I had no way of locating skilled Rick specialists.

John 's pictures, sized to fit:



I retract my original skepticism as to its authenticity, and replace it with "not sure one way or another".

$12,600 was the final price. It is a real one and a beauty.