Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

For those of you who have followed the other thread about the "Ric Prom", the event that brought us together for lots of fun and to support a well-known cancer charity (Gilda'a Club), you'll know that Darren Trott and the others sprang into action while browsing ebay a little after midnight Sunday morning....a left-handed '80 4001 had been listed, so they 'encouraged' me (ganged up on me ) to hit the BIN button, and I did.....sooooo....

Here it is...I am really digging it, it sounds great and other than a replaced nut seems to be all original and pretty clean.


After getting it home I checked it over and cleaned it up, a set of new knobs from POTR, new strings, plugged it in, and----what's wrong...? Hmmm...all the knobs were working weirdly.....next task was to open it up, and I found a little yellow wire that was literally wrapped (not soldered) around the little capacitor (not the tone caps) and just hooked on each end to the lugs at where the solder joints were for the cap. Now that the wire is gone everything works as it should. Very consistant with the way my 'ol '79 sounds and feels, I shall have fun with this one...Thanks to Trotty and the "DO IT!!!!" chorus...one more for the vault.

Beautiful, John - Congrats!

Grrrr!

Congrats John...

Enjoy!

ENJOY IT!!!

Thanks all, I have enjoyed it so far. Taking that added wire out of the harness did the trick for sure. The RIC PROM BASS lives !!!!

IMO the black 'guard and TRC have been on there since day one, judging from the fading on the maple around the 'guard that you see when it's lifted off. Reversed tuners and pots as well, just like my '79. Great basses from this era, the neck feels sweet. No evidence of any abuse of the truss rods whatsoever.

I'll just echo Peter's comment!

Nice, John!

So, what about this little gem then southpaws?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-left-hand-1 ... dZViewItem

I think it's really cool, and this one is a beauty. These early V-Series Rickenbackers are some of the best ever made IMHO, I know the 325V63s have some of the best-feeling necks on a 325 of any era I've ever played.

Hard to say how many left-handed models were made, this was certainly before the mirror-image peghead change by 2-3 years.

LOTS of bids on this already, seems kinda unusual to me from my perspective.

I would have thought this might have the original 60's horseshoes too John...

Congrats, John, enjoy it!!

John, the story of you purchasing this bass will remain one of the highlights of my recent trip. John Koelling and I saw the bass on eBay and I immediately came running down Pascoe's staircase shouting your name.

I knew you were hooked once you moved from a standing position in front of the computer to the driver's seat. It was a pleasure to watch you dissect every detail about the bass from top to bottom (especially when those of us with a more excitable nature would have just whacked that ol' BIN button with a degree of recklessness. As we all gathered around to chant "Buy It, Buy It" you still maintained a steely perseverance in the face of extreme peer pressure. For a while.

Once you hit that magic button, it felt like we ALL purchased the lefty Ric Prom bass!

Well done, mate. I'm glad you're so happy with the bass

Darren - sorry mate, but read here: http://www.rickresource.com/phpBB3/view ... 2&t=378122