Any 230 hamburg owners?

[britinvasion]

I was just offered one in maplego. Frankly , I had never seen one before. Not the prettiest swan on the lake , but kind of cool nonetheless.
$800- asking price kind of put me off it. Any owners opinions?

[kiramdear]

I've got one of its older cousins, a 430 which I really like, but I don't think that qualifies me to comment on the 230. All I know is that it's a John Hall design which employed a number of innovations in its time and broke some new ground for Rickenbacker. Do you know if it has the very flat fretboard like the 430?

[4003]

I have a 250 El Dorado - the "deluxe" version of the 230. I love it. It is my "go-to" guitar above all others. It has a great rock sound and can even pull off some nice metal sounds with my Marshall. IMO Price may be a little steep for these economic times. The fretboard does not seem to be as flat as my 480, but a great player none-the-less!

[teb]

Yep, I had a JG 250 and is was like a little hot-rod and really fun to play. I eventually sold it to Alisha and don't know whether she still has it. The only reason I sold it was because of the typical Rickenbacker skinny nut width that simply doesn't fit my fingers unless I have the necks modified. I replaced it with a very expensive Telecaster that fit a lot better, but didn't sound as good. $800 for a 230 isn't a fantastic bargain, but if you keep it for a couple years, I doubt you will ever lose any money on it.

[britinvasion]

Thanks for the replies. One neat feature is the input jack recess in the body. Unusual pickups too. Maybe I'll snag it if I can get a better price.

[octagon]

Does it look like this?

[soundmasterg]

It isn't a bad price. I got mine used in 1991 for $600, and it's value has stayed right around there for a long time, inching up over the years. I wouldn't let mine go for any price as it was my first guitar, and I refinished it in Blue Boy, so it is one of a kind for sure. If I could find another for a decent price, I'd buy it.

Greg

[britinvasion]

Does it look like this?

Yep. It looks exactly like that.

[mcarroll1031]

I was just offered one in maplego. Frankly , I had never seen one before. Not the prettiest swan on the lake , but kind of cool nonetheless.
$800- asking price kind of put me off it. Any owners opinions?

I ran across this gem on GBASE.COM
It is a 1987 Hamburg 230 finished in Blue. They say it is in excellent condition and is for sale at Nationwide Guitars. The phone number is 410-997-7440. I'd grab this bad boy myself, but I'm a southpaw. Here is a pic. for you. Grab this quick. They want 850.00 for it.

[Leijon]

Hi.

I got one exactly like yours, a 1988 230 Hamburg with mapleglo finish. In Sweden it is a very rare guitar, the only other Swedish guitarist I know who has one is Per Gessle of Roxette fame if anyone remembers him,

I must say I really like it! Many modern guitars are a bit small and don´t weigh much, I like a big guitar that you can feel when you strap it on.

Tone wise, I am very pleased, especially with the neck pickup which I tend to use the most for both clean and distorted sounds. It might be my imagination but the special pickups really seem to work (they were designed to remove th humming of the single coils, sort of like a humbucker with a single coil sound, at least that is what I am told). My gigging an rehearsal days are over, I use it at home for my home studio projects where I run it through my Vox Tonelab LE pedal board and that unit with my 230 is really a match, they really compliment each other.

If I lost my 230, I would really miss it, and I would not hesitate to buy another to replace it. If I could find one, which I doubt.

$800 seems like a decent price, I paid roughly that for mine, and I think it was quite a bargain considering what I got.

Oskar

[jdogric12]

Welcome, Oskar. That's the best first post I've seen in a while! Cheers, J

[soundmasterg]

The 230 got HB-2 humbucker pickups in 1989, but earlier than that should be single coils. The single coils were very quiet as far as hum level according to Mr. Hall and have an interesting design. I have one here that is broken, and I've never played one as my 1989 230 has humbuckers. You can tell if they are single coil or humbucker if they have a circuit board on the back (humbucker) or have a metal back (single coil). You can also tell by the magnetic pull at the top of the pickup and if there is one polarity or two. Both styles of pickup use a samarium cobalt magnet, which is very powerful. Here are a couple pictures of my 230 after I refinished it in Blue Boy.

Greg

[melibreits]

I have a 230, and it's a great-sounding rock guitar.... Unfortunately mine has a short in the bridge pickup connection, which limits the sounds I can get--I keep meaning to take the back off and have an electricain friend look at it (I am not the leat bit handy when it comes to fixing stuff like this), but it hasn't been high on my priority list.... one of these days I will get it fixed, though! Mine is fireglo with gorgeous birdseye, which is kind of hard to capture with the camera.

[britinvasion]

Hi.

I got one exactly like yours, a 1988 230 Hamburg with mapleglo finish. In Sweden it is a very rare guitar, the only other Swedish guitarist I know who has one is Per Gessle of Roxette fame if anyone remembers him,

I must say I really like it! Many modern guitars are a bit small and don´t weigh much, I like a big guitar that you can feel when you strap it on.

Tone wise, I am very pleased, especially with the neck pickup which I tend to use the most for both clean and distorted sounds. It might be my imagination but the special pickups really seem to work (they were designed to remove th humming of the single coils, sort of like a humbucker with a single coil sound, at least that is what I am told). My gigging an rehearsal days are over, I use it at home for my home studio projects where I run it through my Vox Tonelab LE pedal board and that unit with my 230 is really a match, they really compliment each other.

If I lost my 230, I would really miss it, and I would not hesitate to buy another to replace it. If I could find one, which I doubt.

$800 seems like a decent price, I paid roughly that for mine, and I think it was quite a bargain considering what I got.

Oskar

Welcome Oskar! And thanks for the interesting insights into the instrument. While this is rare in Sweden, are other Rickenbacker models generally more available there ?

[soundmasterg]

I have a 230, and it's a great-sounding rock guitar.... Unfortunately mine has a short in the bridge pickup connection, which limits the sounds I can get--I keep meaning to take the back off and have an electricain friend look at it (I am not the leat bit handy when it comes to fixing stuff like this), but it hasn't been high on my priority list.... one of these days I will get it fixed, though! Mine is fireglo with gorgeous birdseye, which is kind of hard to capture with the camera.

230Hamburg2.jpg

I'd check it if I was local to you Melissa. If you pull open the back, you'll see a connector plugged into the board. If you unplug that, and use a DMM (digital multimeter) set on ohms, you should be able to get readings between the pins. One pin will be ground and the others are the coils...but I forget right now which is which. When I refinished mine I took the board out and installed individual pots, caps, wiring, etc so I could have a Gibson style control arrangement instead of the backwards RIC setup. I hated it when the pickup selector was down on the bridge pickup but the controls used were the top ones and vice versa......

Anyway, if you don't get a reading fromt he bridge pickup somewhere around 14k, then it could have a problem. The earlier HB2's had some problems with how they were made that could cause them to easily stop working if the pickup is taken out of the guitar at all. I have one in my 230 right now that is microphonic and unuseable at higher volumes. One of these days I'll get brave enough to try to fix the original one.....

Greg