Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Were toasters produced during the 70's?

Well, they are on the basses up to '73 Ted....

I believe they were on some guitars too..

Andy is right. The last 4001 I have seen factory toasters on is a July 1973 4001 JG that I own with an "MG" serial number. It does not have the factory CB binding. I have also seen factory toasters on a May 1973 4001 that did have CB binding, so the transition away has to be after July 1973. I also saw an August 1973 on eBay awhile back that did not have toasters.

So, this leads me to believe all 4001 Ricks made before Aug 1973 had toasters standard.

My Aug '73 has a toaster pickup and the more I see other Aug '73 4001 basses without checkered binding, the more I believe that mine was the last 4001 made with checkered binding as a standard feature.

My old June of 1973 425 had a toaster pickup.

So can we safely assume that the toaster was out of production from '74 to about '84?

Yep, think that's correct.

I was not thinking. Of course there was production up to some time in '73.

I would put that estimate that closer to '82, Ted - Before the V series, there was the B series.

Yes, if there were any toasters at the factory during that time period, they weren't used. It would be fair to assume that while in good supply they were used until the stock was exhausted, then it was exclusively high-gains from then on until '82, when the toasters were revived for the B-Series Rickenbackers; even then these weren't like the 60's toasters in terms of performance....it might be easier to call them 'high-gain' toasters, lol.....

My MGxxxx 4001 has a toaster and checker binding.

I think it was '81 or '82 that I wanted to install a toaster pickup in my 4003, but I was advised to stick with the higain because of the hard rock that I played.

Yeah, that's right. The B series did have toasters - at least they did in the ads.

OK, so from the beginning (some time in the late 50's) to now, the toaster only missed about 8 production years.

Anyone know about the construction of the toasters for the B series? Were they alnicos? What the coil resistance was?

That is a good question. Maybe they used NOS pickups from the early 70's. Toasters changed just like high gains did but maybe not as radically. The hottest high gains are about 12K and the lowest output were about 7K. I think toasters started in the 6K range. I don't know how hot they eventually got but I am pretty sure 12K is outside of the range.