Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Why do I never see these for sale ? 70s mid 70s, later 4003 basses are pretty common but never any late 80s for sale ??????

Other than the V63, Rick wasn't making 4001 basses in the late 80s. Nothing past probably '85, and those would be the few that trickled out of the factory. Regular production ended in the early 80s.

I think he meant 4003's, but they don't come up for sale too often either, do they? Shadow maybe?

Do you mean the late 80's 4003, Rick? I don't think demand for new Rick basses was anywhere near as strong back then, hence production was not what it is today.

Most of the bands of that time were more interested in spandex, make-up, and hair products than bass tone!

Yeah, that'd be a sparse thread. Hair bands that used Ric basses

marc61 wrote:Yeah, that'd be a sparse thread. Hair bands that used Ric basses

Well, I used my brand new '86 4003 in my hair band "Dream Warriors" in 1987-1989. And yes, we took our name from the Dokken song. Good times.....

4003 wrote:

marc61 wrote:Yeah, that'd be a sparse thread. Hair bands that used Ric basses

Well, I used my brand new '86 4003 in my hair band "Dream Warriors" in 1987-1989. And yes, we took our name from the Dokken song. Good times.....

Wow! Well there you go. There was one!

March 1986. That's the date of manufacture of a truly impressive used BT Mapleglo 4003 I owned not many years ago. I had it shipped from Canada with a little help from the late Gregg Silagyi ("Frankensteinberger"). It was the neck on it that made it even more impressive than virtually any Rick bass: slim, very fast, and dead straight. I still have some (rather large) pictures of it, taken prior to installing my own pickups on it. The original treble pickup was DOA, and the bass one soon followed suit hehe. Oh, and I also installed a treble-pass capacitor, since I wanted that bass to sound like a Rickenbacker was supposed to...

rickcrazy wrote:Oh, and I also installed a treble-pass capacitor, since I wanted that bass to sound like a Rickenbacker was supposed to...

You like those things?!



Another happy mid to late 80's 4003 fan! Why did let go of it, Sergio?

rickaddict wrote:Do you mean the late 80's 4003, Rick? I don't think demand for new Rick basses was anywhere near as strong back then, hence production was not what it is today.

Most of the bands of that time were more interested in spandex, make-up, and hair products than bass tone!

God....you are SO right!!!!!!!!!!




Lefty4003s8

Yeah, late 80s 4003s. Well that explains it. Rickenbacker did not make many. Now I really want one !

VRICKY63 wrote:Why do I never see these for sale ?

Because I bought them. Well not really actually. I have 2, a friend of mine has 1. They are out there and for sale sometimes.

I let it go 'cause I needed the money - bad! ò_ó

Sure I love the 4001 tone - it's the only tone that I'll go for. And being a pickup builder I can very easily address the age-old low 4001 treble pickup output issue.

I just bought a 1989 4003s a couple of months ago. It's fantastic! It's lighter, and the neck is a little thinner than my 2009 Ric. I saw another 89 for sale recently as well on another forum.

rickaddict wrote:

rickcrazy wrote:Oh, and I also installed a treble-pass capacitor, since I wanted that bass to sound like a Rickenbacker was supposed to...

You like those things?!



Another happy mid to late 80's 4003 fan! Why did let go of it, Sergio?

Sergio is probably the most ardent cap booster in this forum.