Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Man I've been really wanting to get my hands on an "F" hole 330 style RIC. I've been looking and finally found this one.If I hadn't today I would have bought the 2 PU Morris model from one our RIC forum members instead.
But the deal went down and I scored this beauty:

Here's a big pic:
http://www.pbase.com/esquire/image/69963433/original

Nice one! Where'd ya get it?

Congrats! The hole story please!

Oh yeah! Beautiful, Kevin.... congratulations!

It's an 88 PT 345 #249. It's missing the Top pickguard cover with PT limited ed. logo but "WHO" ( sorry couldn't resist) cares Pete didn't have the Logo on his and it looks pretty sweet without it anyway.
A few months ago I got really aggressive in my search for a Morris RIC in fire glow that was ambered a bit. Found these PT 345's and thought how cool is that but couldn't find one for sale. Well I finally stumbled on 2 at Ed Roman's but he had them priced at $10,000 - obviosly not in a hurry to sell them. My search went on and settled on a real nice early eighties RIC 330 in (ambered fireglow) because I was just plain discouraged. That was a nice guitar even had the vintage style tuners and smaller headstock like the Morris RICs and reissue Morris RICs. I kept looking and found one, this one (pictured in first post on this thread) in Texas.
Chicago Music has one at around $3500.00 now but it is a bit more red - very nice and complete with logo pickguard but the bridge pickup looks a bit too far from bridge...HUH.... But here's a shot of early Pete I found somewhere on the net. Check out that tailpiece!!!!!!

That tailpiece is just like the one on Steve Howe's '64 ES-175

Yeah sure looks like Steve Howes 175 Tail.

I did notice that the PT 345 at Chicago Music has the bridge pickup a bit far from the bridge. And the color looks too red for a PT - interesting........

Here's Pete:

His doesn't have the signature on the pickguard and it looks great.
Here's #1 of 250 without signature on guard that was owned by Pete Townsend:
This guitar was sold by Pete Townshend himself as part of a charity auction for the flood victims of Mosambique in May 2000. It sold for £9,000. Guitar dates June 1987.

Today that's:
9,000.00 GBP United Kingdom Pounds =
17,217.69 USD United States Dollars

The knob spacing on the Chicago Music guitar is also wrong. It's too "square" for a PT. Look at the guards on the other two.

I'd need to see the headstock but I am *very* dubious about that guitar. The output jack screws also appear to have the later type heads with the large "barrel" shape.

I have to say that I thought something was "off" about the guitar. And it was from CME - notorious for their "creative advertising".

The plot thickens...

Here's a video of Pete Townshend playing a different Ric. It is probably a 12 string, but we're not sure which model. It has 2 pickups, fireglo finish, and an f-hole, so it's probably a British export model. Anybody know what model?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFRzF0VxDTw

P.S. We just now watched the whole thing. The Ric doesn't survive.

That's a Model 1993 that Pete's 'playing' ... las t one on eBay that sold went for >US$10,000.

My 1997PT has the bridge pickup close to the bridge:

Nice score Kevin congrats

I'd like to get a 1997 in the future,i prefer the 2 pickup version,but these PT's do look cool.

I remember passing on one of these back in 1989, and bought my fav instead, a 360/12V64 .
Hindsight's a wonderful thing though.

Congratulations on it... truly a nice score. The Rose-Morris reissues are amazing guitars. I wish they'd reissue them again in 6 and 12 string versions. I had my 1997 out recently to re-string it with flats. Today I finally got to test it out...astounding what a difference those strings made. I had my Vox AC-30HW turned WAY up and was cranking out My Generation, Happy Jack, and some others...really nailed the sound down solid, despite the lack of the Marshall stack.