Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I think the price on this 325v63 is just bad. Let me know what you think

http://cgi.ebay.com/RICKENBACKER-325-V63-MIAMI-JET-GLO-BEATLES-LENNON-MINT_W0QQitemZ200134974729QQihZ010QQcategoryZ2384QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Crikey!! Not only does the price jump out at you, so does the ebay ad..... wow!! All that big print!

OK, so it's a '63 reissue and the 'Made In USA' sticker is still on it...... big deal!

IMO the serial number or year of manufacture and some decent pics might help the seller a bit.

Add to that, $150 to ship from Rhode Island!

And yeah, I noted the original Made in USA sticker. Woah....

Says it was made in 1995. So that'd have the "hi-gains in toaster clothing" pickups, right?

I guess the premium price is because of the "original" strings, it's "virgin" - but played (somebody explain *that* one!), and the sticker... Or maybe there's a surcharge for the font size and all caps in the ad too.

Still, it's way over twice the price I'd think it's worth.

It's been my experience that people who type in ALL CAPS do so because they weren't paying attention during the one week in second grade English class when the proper use of caps was explained. Before They Tried the All-Caps Trick, They Often Were Members of the "Cap Everything but the Short Words" Club. There are a lot of members of this club on Ebay, too.

Ebay US is a slice of American life in every way. Now anybody can browse through Ebay ads and see rampant semi-literacy. Prior to Ebay, this glimpse was restricted to those of us who had mail-order businesses.

The late A.A. Milne, author of the Winnie the Pooh series (ante-Disney), was one the the Chief Offenders of this. He intended for Some Emphasis to be placed on Some Words for writer's style purposes. I always thought it was Cute Once but when overdone to death became Quite Abominable.

I don't mind that--it's a stylistic technique employed by a thinking writer, and the reader understands it...even if the author Overdoes It. ALL CAPS IS JUST LAZY AND ANNOYING.

But language, written and spoken, is everchanging. (That's not a word, but it is.) Not long ago history-wise, all Nouns were capitalized. I like to watch the changes happen, and I enjoy the fact that "dork" is in the dictionary now.

Yep, i agree, Mark, all-caps - especially in headers - look pretty annoying, instead of drawing reader's attention. I've heard that "all caps" on the web means screaming, and personally, when i'm screamed at, i'm not in the mood of buying anything from the screamer.

Behind the scenes in restaurants I've noticed that most chefs
use all caps, and I'm always jumping on the computer
and realizing too deep into a sentence that the cap
locks are on. So I complain about it, sort of the
equivalent of the toilet seat controversy
between women and men. Guys, just so you know,
the default position is Down...

I presume you're not referring to the kitchen staff headwear?

Yep, screaming is how I take it on the internet too.

What say we start up a new retro trend and go back to using "ff" instead of "ss"? Think it'd be succeffful?

Nah, I gueff not...

I was trained in freehand lettering by an Norwegian architect many years before everything shifted to computers; anyone familiar with producing lettering for architectural or engineering drawings (and there are quite a few of us in this forum) is used to seeing 'all caps' in these contexts. I suppose, with the need to make both regulatory and construction personnel cognizant of the necessity for these documents to be treated as 'gospel', the technique of SCREAMING every note at the reader makes a certain kind of sense.

These examples are, of course, very different from literature and 'civil' communication. The use of 'all caps' in these more familiar everyday settings is lazy at best.

That having been said, a much bigger problem exists in the arena of spelling. The average undereducated American can perhaps be forgiven for their complete lack of ability when it comes to this aspect of our 'official' language, but the number of trained and degreed technical workers (including most of the 'bosses' I've ever had) who are completely inept at spelling and grammar is nothing short of shocking.

Then there's handwriting legibility...any draftsman or pharmacist who's had to try to decipher the scribblings of degreed engineers or doctors knows how far down we've sunk in this regard. I'd love to see a comparison between the signatures of our 'founding fathers' and those of today's crop of legislators.

Many years ago I had an employee who had both CPA and MBA credentials. He was also effectively illiterate, both from a grammar and spelling standpoint, as well as unable to express fairly simple points with any clarity or logic.

His MBA degree was granted by a well known school here in Southern California; how they could have allowed a person with such crippled communication skills to graduate was shocking to me and reflected very poorly on the university.

As it happens, many other graduates from that school have applied for positions since then and the resumes have confirmed this was not an anomaly. For this reason, we never hire graduates of that particular school.

Human beings have a wonderful capacity to differentiate the tiniest details. A not-so-close scrutiny of the English language is proof enough--in fact, the word "enough" is just plain bizarre, and learners of English as a second language are painfully aware of it.

But our teaching of the language has apparently dumbed down, for many reasons. One of the main reasons is the fear of litigation when disciplining students---I don't mean spanking, I mean that if a student refuses to even try, there are very few schools with the courage to fail that student. No child left behind indeed: they all get to graduate.

More than litigation, I think it's the loss of tuition most institutions of 'higher' learning are terrified of. After all, Dick Cheney got a four-year degree from Yale, even if his parents had to pay for six years of classes...

Tell ya what: you give me half a million dollars and I'll give you a piece of paper that says you're educated. Somebody's making out on that deal...