Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Does anyone know how many 4001s were produced in 1971.

No.

Graham: This number is impossible to nail down for all but the Factory and I suspect it would take them a while to identify the exact number. After all that was 40 years ago. What a thrill it would be to do the research.

In about 14 years of collecting data we have only 19 1971 4001 instruments in the Rickenbacker Register. We do know that there were many 4001s made and the early 1970s instruments are sought after by many players and collectors alike.

Ok all you 1971 4001 owners who haven't yet registered. Pony up!

glking14 wrote:Does anyone know how many 4001s were produced in 1971.

All I know is my March '71 is #88, while my March '73 is #703. By this logic, they were making about 30 instruments a month in 1971, and had ramped that up to over 200 a month a few years later!

1969-1971 totals are very low. And how many of those were basses is anyone's guess...

Thanks to all who responded,I was hoping to nail down those numbers.

Jeff: Thanks for your analysis. While it is tempting to draw a straight line between two points and fill in the gaps, I suspect it is a little more complicated than this. We cannot know what other projects were ongoing at the same time and what that other production lines within the company might have looked like. For example, other brands such as Electro were produced.

In looking at these data for more than a decade I am often reminded of errors I have made and am mindful of the view that if we torture our data long enough they will confess to anything. Let us hope that John Hall will write us a nice account of RIC over his tenure at some point. There is only so much that we can learn from the outside looking in.

admin wrote:We cannot know what other projects were ongoing at the same time and what that other production lines within the company might have looked like. For example, other brands such as Electro were produced.

Very true, Peter. Going by old catalogs and price sheets they certainly offered many more products/lines back then. The SNs can provide a guesstimate, but that's about all.