Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I hope I'm posting this on the correct forum.
When I was a young aircraft carrier sailor some 40 years ago one of my liberty ports was Naples, Italy. There is a huge NATO base there with an excellent PX. I bought an EKO Ranger 12 string acoustic guitar for about $200 brand new. I had that guitar for years and recently sold it at a garage sale for $100. The action was terrible, and my hands and fingers ached after a few hours on that thing, but it was all I could afford in 1968........ NOW, years later ....I found out that there is some connection between EKO guitars and Rickenbacker and that I probably grossly undersold this fine guitar. Geez, I'd been hauling that huge EKO all over Europe, Viet Nam, California, Florida, and just sold it two years ago. Anyone know the connection between Rickenbacker and Eko acoustic guitars?

Thanks,
modrock

No connection that I've ever heard of, and I highly doubt it.

Rickenbacker was, and still is 100% made in the US, with most (almost all) of the parts made in-house, or at least in the USA.

Eko, while a fine instrument maker, was all Italian. They started with accordions, I believe, years ago, and jumped into the guitar market in the beat boom. I have a pretty cool Eko Violin bass. The best part about Eko is when they made VOX guitars, including the popular teardrop and phantom models, even if that meant the quality went down from their previous English counterparts.

Cheers,
-Collin

Thanks for the reply Col....

I concur with Collin. I have the main books written about Rickenbacker, and there is nothing in there about any connection to EKO. Perhaps your source was confusing EKO with Electro, for which there is a connection.

Bottom line: you were OK selling it!

Hey, Gary! What carrier? What was your job?

I believe the Smith book says something about the connection; it had something to do with marketing, I believe. Rickenbacker sales represented EKO. There was no engineering or manufacturing connection.

jingle_jangle wrote:I believe the Smith book says something about the connection; it had something to do with marketing, I believe. Rickenbacker sales represented EKO. There was no engineering or manufacturing connection.

I believe that's correct Paul. Lots of them in the UK in the 70's and I owned a couple of the acoustic 12 strings, one of which was a beautiful player. JDog bought one a few months back....

Yep, I bought a lefty Ranger XII a few months ago from Canada for about $150 after all shipping costs.

I believe that Rickenbacker distributed Ekos for a brief period in the mid 1960s. The guitars were made in Italy. I am sure there is mention of this in Smith's book.

admin wrote:I believe that Rickenbacker distributed Ekos for a brief period in the mid 1960s. The guitars were made in Italy. I am sure there is mention of this in Smith's book.

Peter, you are absolutely right, according to what R.Smith says in the Rickenbacker book

However, Eko guitars and basses were (and still are) very cheap and economic instruments in the 60s, compared to the stuff coming from the USA like Fenders, Gibsons, Rickenbackers....even the "poor" German Hofners were much better than Ekos....several other manufacturers in Italy were at the same quality level. Nevertheless they were able to provide at low price young musicians with "playable" instruments in a period in which an average family could not afford better ones.

Hi Paul, ( bassduke )

USS Saratoga, CVA-60 and two tours to 'Nam on USS Ranger, CVA-61. My rating was aviation electronics tech, but I didn't touch electronic stuff other than showing RVN AF how to install radios in A-1 Skyraiders in Danang. It wasn't a whole lot of fun, but better than an MOS of 11B ( combat infantry ) in the Army. At least I didn't have to lay in a muddy rice paddy with an M-16. Served from September, 1967-November 1971. Dreams of blonde surfer chicks and Fireglow 360/12 Ricks kept me sane then. At least they gave me some bucks for my college degree, I wouldn't have been able to go to college if not for GI Bill......

Cheers, have a great weekend....

Gary ( modrock )

So I don't feel so bad now about only getting $100 for it. It was a dawg of an axe. Huge, terrible action, the nut must have been 2 inches wide !!!!

modrock

I learned to play on a EKO /6 it was a wonderful guitar is still miss it now.

modrock wrote:
USS Saratoga, CVA-60 and two tours to 'Nam on USS Ranger, CVA-61. My rating was aviation electronics tech, but I didn't touch electronic stuff other than showing RVN AF how to install radios in A-1 Skyraiders in Danang.

Ah yes, the good 'ol Spad..Always been one of my faves.

I have a sunburst 5/6 size Eko archtop acoutstic, made in Recanati, Italy. It was my first acoustic guitar. I bought it at a flea market when I was 14. It was missing the bridge and tailpiece, so I got a set and then , in typical 14 year old fashion, used 3 mismatched screws from my Dad's parts box to attach it. The tuners are also changed and they are strip tuners that do not quite fit right.

And yet, it has been sitting in my closet unplayed for years, with old strings, and when I recently yanked it out to use it for an alternate tuning I was experimenting with, the action was butter and it was still almost perfectly in tune. It has an adjustable truss rod and a zero fret, and really is a great feeling guitar. However, it sounds like absolute ****. The tone simply sucks. My wife said, "Stop playing that thing- I'm getting a headache!"

Also, it is not used much as it has two big, gorgeous sweeping signatures on the front: Don and Phil Everly. I met them some years ago and they signed it for me. It looks awesome.