Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Very interesting JPS, I hadn't realised they'd done one. A shame nothing has come of it so far, but I guess it must be pretty rare.

I think the covers post HS pickups were made of metal until sometime in the early '70s when plastic covers took over.

I'd buy one...

Just for clarity, that is John Hall, not me.

I have one of those metal covers, JS, and I emailed Mr. Hall that he was welcome to it if he wanted to use it or examine it, but I never got a response. That musta been about two years ago or so. I would imagine he had more important things on his mind at the time...

Gene,
You may want to try again, I know that at times when I've emailed him its taken a while to get back to me, the company spam filters get in the way.

You could also email Rickenbacker at:

[email protected]
[email protected]

I'm sure either of those would get routed to John.

I just got off the phone with Richard Cannata and told him to let John know that Gene still has the metal cover for John's perusal.

I was very surprised when I realized that the covers should be plastic, about 10 years ago. At the same time I had an '80ies 4003BG with split pick guard which actually came with the metal cover. As this was my first Rick again since I spoiled a 4001FG back in 1979 and I never took off the cover those days, I was in the believe, that it always was a metal cover. On the 4003BG it however did not affect the sound. I removed it only for my favorite finger play position.

Wow, a metal plate on a bass made in the 80s? I remember very clearly going to admire all the Rickenbackers in this store in Houston TX in the early 70s, and my recollection is that they stopped coming in to the store with metal bridge pu covers in late 1973. There was a person that used to do a lot of work for Forumites a few years ago that had worked for Rickenbacker in the '70s,his name was Mark, I believe and he didn't even believe me, until Mr. Hall stepped in and said yes, there had been some bridge pu covers made of metal between the time that the Horseshoe went out of service, but before the plastic cover come into use. But I never heard of one that was on an 80s bass.

As I did not have very much knowledge about Ricks those days, I donno whether it was a replacement or original, did not pay too much attention on it, just removed it. I guess some 70ies copies also had metal covers. The bass was an '82 4003BG (two piece pick guard).