1973: The transition year

[bassduke49]

There are a couple of 1973 4001 basses on eBay right now that help illustrate the sequence of feature changes that occurred that year. A May 1973 Burgundy that has full-width (but not sparkly crushed pearl) position markers (along with the Toaster-top pickup and checker binding), and a June 1973 Fireglo with the "new" smaller inlays. I'm sure the timelines of these changes are not abrupt, but these two certainly show what changed and roughly when:

http://cgi.ebay.com/1973-RICKENBACKER-4 ... 286.c0.m14

http://cgi.ebay.com/1973-RICKENBACKER-4 ... 286.c0.m14

[markbass99]

Actually Paul the May 73 that is on ebay right now is a "straggler", almost all of the Mays that I have seen usually have small inlays vs Aprils that look like this one. There were also a lot of burgundies produced in April so this one had me scratching my head a little. This one was probably made in April but got held up for some reason and ended up with a May jackplate. It is pretty decent looking and the neck route doesn't look too bad, too bad about the guard and tailpiece, they will be extremely hard to replace.

The June that is on ebay looks a lot like my July, the combination of checkered binding and small triangles is "usually" seen in the months of May, June, and July with August having the most examples of regular binding appearing. Joey Vasco has the only August I've ever seen with checkered binding.

[jwr2]

I found the 70s 4001 basses better sounding basses than the 60s 4001 basses.

[rickcrazy]

Hmm... Too bad both the bridge/tailpiece assembly and the pickguard on the May '73 4001 are not legit Rick parts though... No, I didn't need to read the description to know right away those were huh... replacements

[rickenbrother]

Looks like the May '73 has the bass pickup in the 1" position!

[ilan]

Looks like the May '73 has the bass pickup in the 1" position!

Which implies that the bass is routed under the replacement pickguard to accept the pickup in that position.

[rickaddict]

Yeah, how about it!

This cheesy $15.00 reproduction pick guard doesn't quite fit my classic 1973 bass. I guess I'd better get out my hand drill and take out a bunch of wood in the neck pickup pocket and re-drill the screw holes to make it fit! Ahhhh...that's better!

[wints]

My old March 73 had the 1" spacing....



and the small inlays...

[markbass99]

It looks like it also had the newer, more bendier tailpiece, not much on that bass that points to March. The March I just got recently has all the "right stuff" except for the bass volume pot, it had been replaced with a split shaft style. Anybody out there have a spare 73 pot you could live without?