Reading about US trade statistics today (I push the envelope when it comes to excitement), I wondered what Rickenbacker's US to foreign countries ratio was in terms of sales. I don't subscribe to Music Trades anymore since the tirade I read from them against unions (I guess they don't care about pissing off union subscribers, and I am happy to save my money, so it's a win-win), and I'm not sure they would have that information anyway since Rickenbacker is privately held. But it would be interesting to know the demographic makeup of Ric's customers, in which countries people buy the most Rics, etc. I suppose you could spectulate it would be the US, Canada, Japan and Britain in terms of ranking.
Re: Rickenbacker Exports
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:28 am
by artisan4
Stumped the panel on that one.
Re: Rickenbacker Exports
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:42 am
by collin
artisan4 wrote:Stumped the panel on that one.
You might as well email RIC to find out. That info isn't public, so none of us would know it.
Re: Rickenbacker Exports
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:43 am
by libratune
artisan4 wrote:Stumped the panel on that one.
John Hall states towards the end of this video that approximately 60% of RIC production is shipped to non-US destinations. You don't believe me? Watch this and find out. It's a great video BTW, shows the complete instrument production process and the care that goes into each step. IMO should be required viewing before one gets too huffy about some RIC instrument feature:
PS Thanks to Ken Joseph for posting this vid on the X-Bracing thread.
Re: Rickenbacker Exports
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 10:59 pm
by artisan4
What a great video; thanks for posting it. What a pleasure to see a high-quality product made in USA with such care and precision. I like the farm-grown maple aspect as well.