Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

John Peterson was kind enough to send me scans of some vintage RIC catalogs and price lists for my research for the bass book, and I found this note on the "Effective May 19, 1986" price list interesting:

"Colors"
"Midnight Blue (MID), Silver (SIL), Ruby (RBY), White (WHT), Mapleglo (MG), FIreglo (FG), Jetglo (JG), and Red (RED)"

"MID, SIL, WHT, RED, & MG come standard with Black hardware, binding, nameplate and pickguard.
RBY, FG & JG come standard with Chrome hardware, White binding, nameplate and pickguard."

Under "Options", a $50 surcharge is listed for "Custom charge for reversal of hardware, binding, nameplate and pickguard color"

What's surprising here is that black trim was "standard" on Mapleglo and Midnight Blue at this time. Obviously it was standard on White, Red and Silver.

As I suspected, White (and chrome) trim on Ruby was standard, although I have run across some black trim on Ruby, and white trim on Red (obviously some preferred to spend the extra bucks for the "reversal").

I think what's interesting is that it appears Rickenbacker over the years offered some pretty inexpensive customizing options that the other majors certainly did not.

I have a Ruby 4003 with black trim. Also interesting is there is some finish loss on the back of the neck and it is silver underneath. I initially thought it might have been refinished, so I posted on the Rickenbacker site. John Hall responded and said the Ruby and Midnight Blue finishes had a silver coat underneath.

Yep. But this applies only early MID, I believe. The new Midnight Blue is a one-step pearlescent.

Ruby was a 3-stage finish (and one of a few that Rick did that used a light gray colored primer instead of a transparent sealer coat over the wood).

The sequence went like this, from the wood out:

Light gray primer>silver metallic basecoat>Ruby transparent color coats>conversion varnish topcoats

Ruby differs from Fender Candy Apple Red mainly in that the Fender finish uses a gold undercoat.

Wonder what laying gold metallic basecoat instead of silver metallic basecoat under blue color layer would do to the overall composite color, assuming the same clearcoat over both? Wouldn't it tend to "green out" the blue?

And would it be too gauche for a Rick rehab special to use the old-fashioned "big" metalflakes mixed with transparent blue, kinda like doing Harley tanks, covers, and fenders back in the 1960s and 1970s? The flakes, being so large, tend to "stick out" on-edge from the color coat, so you have to use a LOT of clearcoat before the first good flat-sanding, or else sand off the edges of the flakes where they stick out after the first clearcoat layer and then you can use less coats of clear. So I don't know if the larger old-fashioned metal flakes would make a good wild non-standard finish for a guitar or not I would sure like to see one done like that someday, and I may even try doing the next $999 beltrash special BIN off eBay that way someday.

Kitschenbacker, Elys.

Elys, that's actually yet another finish I've been pondering....