Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I have just purchased a 1980 Ric 4001 and bought a bridge pickup cover over the net. It is PLASTIC though chromed. Are these covers supposed to be METAL? Anyone know?
Thanks

Welcome aboard, Jeff.
Rest assured yours is genuine RIC PU cover.
Only a very small amount of all metal ones were made before the mid '70s.

I've never seen an actual metal cover excluding the horseshoe wraparound. If anyone has one or a picture of one, I'd really like to see it.

I'll take a picture of mine when I get a chance, but I haven't been using that bass lately for my recording... They actually weren't THAT rare, I estimate that they were made between around '70-73 but I think since it is almost a religion to reomove the cover(at least in my part of the world), not many of them survived.

Hey Mvtekiah, are you the guy who paid $29 for the used one on ebay earlier this week ?

Joey...
Thanks to you I didn't buy it on eBay but got one for $15 - but it is plastic so I was wondering if it was supposed to be plastic or metal.

Jeff, I'm glad I could help a fellow forumite from paying what would be more than double the price of a new one, once you added in the shipping.
They are supposed to be chrome plated plastic.
The original horseshoe style is metal, but those are actual functioning part of the pickup.

Joey,
There was a short span of time in the early seventies when the bridge pickup cover WAS made of metal, but was not a functioning part of the pickup, and was not split like the horseshoe, which it succeeded. But that fact is not widely known, even on this Forum. I know this because I own one and I initially got very interested in Rick basses in the Spring of '72 and witnessed the transformation from metal covers to plastic.

Actually this subject was covered at length months ago and included input from John Hall. Personally I have a '72 4001 with the plastic cover. The first few years of the 70's were a transition period for RIC basses so features from bass to bass can vary including this one.

This comes up about every three months.

Here's the last thread from July: ../5/5954.html"../3345/1716.html" target=_top>../3345/1716.html"MB">

Gene, I thought I had read that somewhere that the first non horseshoe pickup covers where metal, but I wasn't positively sure. Thanks to you and Dave for clearing that up. I'm sure that one of those in good shape is very rare and would sell for quite a bit on ebay.

I see them now and then at guitar shows, but I've never seen one on ebay. I bought one a few years ago at the Dallas show but I think I only paid 10-$20 for it. I don't think there is really much demand for them because most folks remove them anyway, plastic or metal. I like to play my bass with a pick in the style similar to the way Squire plays, so I prefer to have them on my bass. If you watch him carefully, he has two positions to rest the back of his picking hand when he's playing. One is on the bridge and the other is on the horseshoe. I find that having the cover on helps me to mimic a part of his style without having an actual horseshoe PU on the bass.

My Dec 68 4001 still has the original cover on it. It,s got to be one of the first made and most probably the oldest one still intact out there. I,m not sure if it,s metal or plastic!! A sticky magnet sticks to it, but could that just be the chrome?? It,s very light in construction and sounds almost hollow when tapped. So does the whole surround. In fact the whole surround and cover actually look like one piece..surely not...

Andrew, if it is like one of mine, it is very thin, in fact mine sounds a little bit hollow when I tap on it, but it is just because it is thin... Can you post a picture of it?
I thought that a '68 would still be a horseshoe pickup, because I came very close to buying a 1970 Rick 4001 that HAD a horseshoe on it, and it wasn't a reissue....

Squirebass wrote:

"I thought that a '68 would still be a horseshoe pickup, because I came very close to buying a 1970 Rick 4001 that HAD a horseshoe on it, and it wasn't a reissue...."

The 1968 Rickenbacker Catalog shows a Jetglo 4001 with a horseshoe pickup, but with a surround that has no taper on the front end....

There were instances in the late 60's-early 70's when a customer would want a particular Rickenbacker instrument, and receive something that may have been made months earlier, in some cases years. Many left-handed instruments were constructed years earlier(at least their bodies and necks) than what their serial numbers indicate. This could be the case with what Gene posted above, finding a 1970 4001 with a horseshoe...Rest assured that Andy's 4001 is original and unaltered, with a very early high-gain bridge p/up.