Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

It's hard to pin down color and trim timelines, and here's an example that has me rethinking what I have stated before. It does appear that all factory 4001 basses had white neck binding, even if the body were bound in black. I was under the impression that had changed to black-bound necks with the introduction of the 4003. But here is an example of a White '82 4003 with black-bound body and white-bound neck. So it looks like the black-bound necks came in a bit later than '82:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1982-RICKENBACK ... 554wt_1308

Judging by the examples in the gallery I would guess sometime in mid 1985 for black binding on 4003s
with June 85 being the earliest example

Ooh, thanks for scouring the Registry, Robert!

I always assumed that black neck binding was part of the Black Trim package. So I guess it started when BT was introduced.

Black body binding was standard on white and some WAL/ATG guitars, but when they had chrome hardware, neck binding was white.