Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

hi..looking round to buy a new 12 string..and was wondering what the colour for 2004 will be..if anyone has any idea...

Looks like Blueboy, according to Ric's site. It also looks like Montezuma Brown is now a regular production color.

If it really is Blueboy, then Ed Roman should lose his Authorized RIC Dealer status...

Why do you say that John? I ask because I myself have been a customer of Mr. Ed's.

Mr. Hall stated that dealers were told in advance what the 2004 color would be, but were warned not to reveal it until 2004. RIC was doing the dealers a service so they could plan ahead - the least they could do was respect RIC's demand for secrecy.

Ed immediately went and plastered "2004 Color of the Year: Baby Blue" (or something similar) on his site.

So, if the color really is BlueBoy, Ed, although warned, defied RIC's wishes. Besides, he's caused a bit of talk with his latest fiasco of inexplicably giving RIC instruments horrible ratings in his new "educated" ratings of instrument brands page.

If he dislikes RIC's so much to slam them both blatently and subtley, then maybe he no longer wants to sell them.

I ordered a Ric from Ed Roman's in July and had to wait until the end of December to get it. It was a stock color (MB) in a common model (360). I ordered from them because his website said (and showed in photos) that he is one of the largest Ric dealers in the world. The salesman said that they had an order due to arrive "any day now", and that day stretched out for five months!

If what you are saying is true, perhaps they are cutting back on the Ric stock that they carry. I can empathize somewhat, however, because with all of the brands that they list, it would be VERY expensive to carry every model in every color.

Could anyone post the link to that infamous Ed Roman brand rating page? I can't find it...
Thanks!

Actually it's a rating page for basses only, and it's here: http://www.edromanguitars.com/avail/bass/main.htm

Here's an interesting thread from TalkBass the other day http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=111468 , note the post from wyliee on page 2 (currently the latest post), he claims Ed plans to require $100 up front just to look at his basses, non-refundable if you don't buy. If that's true, well, that speaks volumes about the guy.

I searched the RIC page overthe weekend and found nothing to indicate that Blue Boy was the 2004 custom color.

On the color page, it does list both Blue Boy and Monty Brown as available colors.

Got the scoop straight from Mr. Hall regarding the availabilty of MB. I was a bit worried, as I just purchased a 2003 MB 4003. Personally I'm glad it's still limited!


"MB will be held over for one more year only and will not become a regular color in our line. This was done simply because the color was late to ship last year and therefore did not have proper representation in the stores so that people could see it before ordering.

Regards,

John Hall"

Thanks for the info Chris. This explains to me why my 360 in MB took so long to receive. MB is my favorite color for just about anything so I am pleased to have it for my guitar also.

I just realised an error that I have been making. I have used the initials MB to mean "midnight blue". After looking at a few more posts, I see that you people are using MB to mean "montezuma brown" and MID for midnight blue. Oops. So, I still don't understand why a 360 in midnight blue took Mr. Ed's 5 months to deliver.

Maybe because delivery for any model is generally upwards of 8 months?

I wouldn't like to sound rude, but would enlarging the staff help a bit in eliminating this problem? I could imagine a lot of people are put off buying Rickenbackers because of the long wait...

Ah, the naive new members! Let's see a show of hands, how many of us had suggested that when we were new and unknowing?