Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Each of these guitars has its own particular story, told in various places including posts on this forum.

Now all three are together. Presenting the Polynesian, V109 and V87 . . .
Lucky day in Ohio for the photos, no snow on the ground and a bit of sunshine.

Lucky day for me, too. I didn't set out to find these guitars, they kind of found me.

No words....

Interesting treble horn on the Polynesian. Looks longer compared to the others.

Astounding Ron!

opticnerve wrote:Astounding Ron!

What makes Ron astounding?

Good to see V109 safe and in good company. Congrats on a truly amazing trio Ron!

glen_l wrote:Good to see V109 safe and in good company. Congrats on a truly amazing trio Ron!

+1. Ron, you are maintaining quite an arsenal these days... Congrats and I love that pic.

Congrats Ron! What a trio.

jps wrote:

opticnerve wrote:Astounding Ron!

What makes Ron astounding?

Let me count the ways! Lol!

collin wrote:Congrats Ron! What a trio.

+1, they do look nice.

Great trio! Was there any specific reasoning in the elongated body of the V87?

Electrostring wrote:Great trio! Was there any specific reasoning in the elongated body of the V87?

On the V87, here's some info I put together from sources I consider reliable: "This is one of three “Longbody” Capri prototypes produced by Rickenbacker during the R&D stages of the Capri concept in late 1957. This guitar features a short-scale neck on an elongated semi-hollow body, which is made of several pieces of figured wood laminated together “butcher-block” style. Its unusual length required a short “extension” piece to complete the bass horn. The production 325 guitars that followed had a body that was shorter by about 1.5 to 2.0 inches."

As to the specific reasoning behind the elongated body? I can only guess that they were trying to get the overall length of this short-scale guitar to match the length of the then standard-scale guitars. Or maybe it was just an experiment!

Glen might have more insight on this if he cares to chime in.

Thanks for those bits of info, Ron The V87 would be round without the horns, or that's what it looks like to me at least.

The Polynesian is the guitar from the Smith book that got a 3rd PU added? Here I go again with me questions

Electrostring wrote:Thanks for those bits of info, Ron The V87 would be round without the horns, or that's what it looks like to me at least.

The Polynesian is the guitar from the Smith book that got a 3rd PU added? Here I go again with me questions

No problem with the questions!

The unusual length of the V87 body required a short “extension” piece to complete the bass horn.

The Polynesian was initially issued with two PUs and the middle PU was later added at the factory, acccording to the Smith book, p. 147.

On the V109 and the V87, are those Oven Knobs the Black w/silver or Brown w/gold Oven Knobs ??
They look Black in the picture but the pickguards are gold.....