Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

He said that they sent it away to Cezchlslovokia (pretty sure that's right) where the original manufacturer was, but that it about a year to get it fixed.

Don't know from there....if Harrison got it back and sold it or not. But Rory laughed because when he gave his Futurama to George which had barely a scratch on it and when he brought it back from Hamburg it was severely used and beaten up.

yea, I bet it was!....
So George was using Rory's guitar for the first trip to Hamburg (summer/fall of '60):

and the second trip in the spring of '61:

but by the third trip (spring '62) George had gotten his Duo Jet:


kinda interesting to observe those early years in that over time George seems to hold his guitar higher and higher... John too.

I think the guitar up around the neck look was probably inherited from the likes of Tony Sheridan and Roy Orbison, both of them played big hollow body guitars pretty high up. It has been said that John and George got the J160e's because they thought they were getting archtops like Sheridan's. Don't know if that's true or not.

George only had one Graziozo and used it for the first two trips to Hamburg. It was eventually raffled off and is still in London. The Best guitar had nothing to do with George Harrison. It has the rosewood neck and is about a year later than George's. George would already be playing his Duo-Jet when this Futurama was made.

I posted what Rory told us...don't know if it's 100% accurate or not....

Isn't there a Futurama pictured in the Casbah book (True Beginnings)?

Yes, the one posted in the True Beginnings book has a rosewood neck. There are no photos showing George playing a Futurama with a rosewood neck. His was very early with the maple neck. I saw the Rory guitar when it was at The Beatles Story. I couldn't believe they displayed it there as George's.

Bummer. I thought it was a cool story.

No problem. If you have the book, look near the end and you'll see the Futurama with the pickguard intact. Somebody must have told them it should say Resonet on the upper pickguard. They broke that part off for the photo in the middle of the book. Theirs would have said Futurama Foreign instead of Resonet. Not a good thing to deceive people.

No argument there...

wow... so a Rory Best scam has been uncovered?

Maybe, maybe not .... this site explains things further:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/446997/thread/1166026661/last-1166891859/George+Harrison's+Resonet+Futurama


which is a colorized verion of the pix:
http://home.no.net/seltaeb/html/indra.html

Show me a photo of George playing a Futurama with a rosewood neck? There aren't any. The first trip to Hamburg(1960) is well documented with Astrid Kirchher photos and the second trip(1961) is also well documented with Jurgen Vollmer photos. Plus other photos from that period. George only plays his Graziozo Resonet with maple board.

I love that story about how the boys wanted "Jumbo Gibsons" and wound up with the acoustics!

While in Mississippi and Arkansas to record "The Delivery Man," Elvis Costello bought a Futurama guitar for $150 US which says on the back of the neck "George Harrison's second guitar." Elvis facetiously speculates it "must have been stolen." He also notes it has a concave fretboard, which is very interesting.

Was it found in Mississippi OR Arkansas? This is very important.

hmmm.... sounds like the jury is still out on whether Rory Best is telling the truth or not?