Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

They are clearly blatant counterfeits, but not unplayable firewood as commonly described. If they were I don't suppose Ric would care much. The threat to all the American guitar manufacturers is that they ARE marginally playable, some with decent fit and finish, and that situation is only going to get worse as the Chinese get better at ripping off trademarked design with CNC repeatability and an increasingly sophisticated and demanding nascent middleclass workforce. Guitar making is not rocket science, and well within the capabilities of most of the Asian industrialized nations. Many of these companies have the active or passive support of the Chinese government, and US Customs can only open so many containers. Counterfeit guitars are a ways down their priority list behind drugs and smuggled weapons, as, let's face it, they should be. This video comparing real vs. fake points out the substantive differences pretty clearly, but a lot of American consumers don't value the difference. Who do we point the finger at for that one? That's true for a lot more than just guitars, unfortunately. Now that even Fender has shipped much of it's production to Indonesia and Mexico, Ric is an increasingly lonely island in a very big sea. I'm not a John Hall fan personally, but I commend him on the survival of Ric as a truly American company in a blizzard of cheap imports.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiP_yqMtL_A

Ashgray wrote: You don't actually support these pirate parasites, do you?

Ash

No Ash, I don't support at all just couldn't resist satirizing his earlier comments in this thread.
Pirated copies not successful...

Gilmourisgod wrote:The threat to all the American guitar manufacturers is that they ARE marginally playable, some with decent fit and finish, and that situation is only going to get worse as the Chinese get better at ripping off trademarked design with CNC repeatability and an increasingly sophisticated and demanding nascent middleclass workforce.

The difference between Rickenbacker and a dozen other brands is that Rickenbacker instruments are actually protected in the United States by intellectual property laws. These copies, no matter how good they are, can never be sold by a retail entity existing in the United States, you will only find these being sold directly from China. This alone grants them signifigant power in limiting the presence of these guitars in the USA.

iiipopes wrote:

jps wrote:Can you summarize that in Haiku form, thanks?

I prefer my real
Rickenbacker to all fakes
And support John Hall.

jps wrote:Can you summarize that in Haiku form, thanks?

What is this cheap wood
Invading from the far east
Rickenbacker not

Concrete bass?
Go swim with it...

I think he got too close to the muzzle of his pellet gun…."hey kid….you'll shoot your eye out".

that was a hoot!

those copies are absolute garbage i even tried one with Seymour Duncan pickups, it was still garbage. waste of money and time. if you want a Rickenbacker then buy a Rickenbacker.