Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

New to this site... Does anyone know about Ryder/Rickenbacker guitars? I recently got an 18 fret fireglow. Looks to be from early 60's, with brown hard shell case and a Rickenbacker strap inside. It does have neck thru contstruction. I think it was made for a Ryder Music School? Code on bridge is DK 461. How can I figure exact date on this, and what do you think it's worth?

Hi, Donald, and welcome!

DK serIal number sounds like late 1964 to me. But there is a decoder tool over at the RIC corporate site.

The Ryders are great little guitars, and an interesting page in the history book. ! Can you manage to post pictures for us?

Do a search for Ryder here on the forum and you'll learn a lot more.

Welcome, Donald!

I have one like yours, but mine is a 1966:
They are fun little guitars.

Wow yours is super clean, beautiful! I had mine for at least a year, but thinking it was just a cheap imitation, I never really looked at it. (it was given to me as payment for woodwork) Then I started researching online and lo and behold! Inside the case is a leather Rickenbacker strap that really got me wondering. From what I found out they were made at the Ric factory for a Ryder music school. Any idea on the production numbers on these? What's interesting to me after seeing yours is that the cutaways are different. Your cutaway continues the radius from treble side to bass side, and mine is like a tulip style on the bass side, but like yours on the treble side. I guess they changed it up a bit. I'll post a pic soon. Mine appears to be hardly used, not super clean like yours, but I can tell it's been stored for a while.

Electro changed the body style over the years, yours is an older style compared to Gary's.

Was Electro the parent company of Ric.?

They were the factory side of the company. The manufacturing and the sales sides were basically two separate divisions; Rickenbacker's history is quite interesting, there is even a major tie-in with Fender. If you haven't yet, get and read the Richard Smith book, even with it's inaccuracies the book is very much worth reading.

Cool, I'll look into the book. I play a little bit of guitar, but as a bass player and huge Beatle fan, I always wanted one of the basses. Such a great original design.

Well then, you should get a copy of Paul Boyer's book on Rick Basses that just recently came out. There is lots of info on all Rick bass models, with the assistance of many here on the RRF, many of whose bases are in the book. Great summer reading, even Chris Squire is reading the book this summer.

Nice acquistion. I've owned my ES-16 (Electro version) for years, yet decided to sell just recently. Perhaps the registry can assist you on pricing.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=409711

Were there any differences between the Ryder model and the Electro model, on these ? They look pretty similar.

8mileshigher wrote:Were there any differences between the Ryder model and the Electro model, on these ? They look pretty similar.

I think that the only difference is the TRC.

Anyone know where I can look to find production#'s on early Ryder's?

hoosurdad wrote:Anyone know where I can look to find production#'s on early Ryder's?

Those, like most production numbers, are not available.

Of the 11 Ryders indicated as such in the Register, four of them are the short-scale student model 1000. It's probably safe to say that production numbers were likely pretty low.

Awesome! I'm loving this little guitar even more! It doesn't seem to have been played much. I'll get a few pics up soon, been too busy.