Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

okay i know that most pickup covers for 4001's are made of plastic, but I'm wondering:
a. if theres anyone who makes metal ones
b. if those nifty split covers are metal and if they are easily attainable

because the pickup cover is the only thing i didn't get with my 77 4001 and even if i didn't use it i would like to have one, just to say i did you know?

The split ones, on older basses (pre 69) are actually horseshoe magnets. The 4001CS, V63 and the C64 use cosmetic, non-magnetic steel horseshoes around a bobbin that has magnetic pole pieces. The covers from the 70's on are made of plastic with chrome-look coating (mylar?). Some later models with black trim had black covers that were the same plastic without the chrome look. Most players do not like the covers and remove them because they get in the way. Pick players sometimes use them as a place to rest the picking hand. It is a matter of preference. The plastic ones are easy to get. Horseshoes are an entirely different matter. Real shoes are difficult to find and RIC does not offer the VR horseshoes at this time.

For a short time in the early '70s, the covers were metal.

So that is true? I've heard that but have never actually seen one.

Neither have I. The one off a 69 I used to have is plastic...

The early covers are different than the current ones. They are
shorter and wider. The newer(post 80 I think) are designed to
rise and lower when the pickup is adjusted. The early ones are
held against the mount ring by the springs...

The plated covers are plating-grade ABS and are actually triple plated over the plastic.

Mylar is not plating, but is DuPont's trade name for a transparent polyester film which is often vacuum-metallized.

I don't think the covers were ever metal,as John Fay my 69 has a shorter wider plastic cover and that was the first year for them and the high gain pickup,my 72s had plastic,every 4001 Ive owned has had plastic.

Didn't John Hall ask if anyone here had one he could use as a template to reproduce them? If he was looking for a metal cover, I would think they did exist at one time!

My Dec 68 has the plastic type. A light flat magnet will just stick to it though. I presume that is the coating.


Someone bought a 74/5 from Europe a while back and that came with a metal cover. I remember asking if it really was metal and they said it was.

Wait!! on the contrary if the owner of Rickenbacker doesn't have access to a metal one something is wrong maybe they dont exist.

They probably just don't have any more around. John did inquire among us about borrowing one.

Yes, and then a couple months ago somebody here said that they had a metal one, if I remember correctly.

I was told by Jim Rhoads,and other collectors the only metal covers were Japanese copy's,why would they make a metal cover that could interfere with the pickups magnetic field?and it would cost more then plastic and why switch from plastic to metal back to plastic again,when there was no purpose for a metal one to begin with.

Jim, told me people will swear there was a metal cover but there never was.

They have a chrome metal like coating making everyone think there metal.

I think it was Gene Schillaci that said he would lend a metal pickup cover to RIC because John Hall said they might go back to the metal cover.
I haven't seen Gene post in a while.

Maybe John Hall will read this thread and chime in.