Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It's like most of those Asian instruments. If you paw through enough of them, you can find excellent guitars. They did get it right once in a while. Mine plays like an electric and sounds great.

My first guitar was a 1958 solid body Hofner Colorama (Gold Top two pickup version).

My second guitar was my much loved 375 FG Rickenbacker. I don't own either of them anymore, unfortunately.

My first bass was a 1970 Hofner when I was 12, in 1978, then a '63 Gibson EB-3 until I bought my first Rick, a new 4003S in 1986. Then came my '65 Jazz Bass that I bought from my brother in 1989 for $350.00. I used it exclusively until I bought my MG V63 in 2004.

Early 70 sunburst tele custom with rosewood fingerboard. Haven't seen many like 'em since.

My first "real" guitar was a Fender acoustic I bought from B-Sharp music (there is a Beatles-Rickenbacker connection with them) in the mid-70's. When it was stolen from my stalled car during a blizzard, I put all the money I had saved up into a beautiful tobacco-burst Alvarez Yairi handmade dreadnaught. I play it to this day, still prefer it to most of the high-end acoustics on the market from Taylor, Martin or Gibson, as fine as they are. But I've never had my head turned like I have viewing these acoustic Rickenbackers that Paul W. has been commissioned to build. I want one REAL bad...

First "real" electric was my blue '57 Reissue Stratocaster, still have it. And my first "real" bass was my Burgundyglo '72 4001. Bought it in 1988 for $150. And I won't sell it for a penny less.

Wow! $150.00 Mark. Was that an offer to sell? A contract consists of offer, acceptance, consideration, capacity to bargain etc.

Perhaps you meant to say $1500.00? If not perhaps you should get a forum award for best deal struck ever on a Rickenbacker in recent memory.

My first guitar of any kind was my '66 Rickenbacker 330 JG, bought in 1981 or thereabouts for $115. I hardly knew how to play, but sure wore deeper grooves in my "Chronic Town" EP while playing along.

My first bass(1976) was a Kay.
Followed by an Epiphone, a very nice bass I wish I still had.
Then the obligatory Fender Precision, a '72 I bought in '77. Sunburst, tort guard, rosewood 'board. I still own....the case. See, I was in this punk band in the late 70s and...you get the picture.
I then picked up an early-production MusicMan Stingray in '79(?) but didn't care for it and swapped it for my first Ric, a white w/black trim 4001. And the rest, as they say, is history.

It was $150 and I'm not sellin'.

It even has some provenance...it belonged to Tommy Stinson of The Replacements in the mid-80's, and you can look at it if you watch their 1985 Saturday Night Live appearance on YouTube. But by the time it was sold to me it had been savaged. It's looking pretty good these days, thanks to a lot of advice from all of you masterful forum members.

First good guitar was an Epiphone SG. I traded my no-name Strat in for it, plus some cash after getting a video copy of The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus and seeing Pete Townshend play an SG on that killer version of "A Quick One, While He's Away". That guitar was quickly joined by an Epiphone Firebird. It wasn't long after that though that I finally got a hold of a Ric 360/12v64, so I didn't wait too long before getting around to something great. Anyway, I traded the Epiphone SG somewhere along the way for another guitar. I still have an SG in the collection though: a Gibson Pete Townshend SG just like the one he played on the Circus performance.

My first big brand guitar is a 1969 Gold Top Les Paul Deluxe (with minis). I traded a CGA color computer monitor for it in 1985.

Until then I started with a 1968 Riviera LP copy (new from Mom and Dad)and a 1970 Stewart hollow body (similiar to a Fender Coronado but shaped like a Strat).

I still have all 3.

...Dean

First guitar I was 15 and got a 6 string Barth - neck like a tree trunk. Then I decided I was a bassist and got a $49 Conrad hollowbody feedback special. I earned good money with that one for almost 5 years. It could have used a setup - action in the air - who knew how?!

FF to Feb 2005 and Rainbow Music in GR, MI. I got my first real bass, my 4003MG. Life would have been different if I'd gotten it back in 1972.

I remember looking in the window of a music shop at a 60's Hofner violin bass for a whopping $400 (late 60s - I was 16) which was way beyond my ability to buy.

I also rescued a 60s Kay Les Paul-type short scale bass from the trash and glued the headstock back on. Someone had pulled the frets so I had a taste of fretless, but the bass was really beat. Has checkered binding though! And a really dark powerful pickup.

My first "decent" guitar was a Giannini classical, which I still have. After that my first electric was a blue '65 Fender Mustang that I bought in '68 for $100 (w/OHSC). In early '74 I traded it in on a new Guild D-35.

Graduating from a Crown strat-ish looking thing to a real strat, a '64, in 1971. $200 from Sol Betnun's in H'wood.

First bass was a used 4001JG from GC in H'wood in 1972.

Second bass was (is) my 4005 again from Betnun's in about '82 for around $250.

First good electric 6 string was a 60's/70's Guild Bluesbird..one of the ones I should not have let fly away!