Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello everybody!

It's my very first post on this forum. I live in Lyon, France, and I am 25 years old. I especially like The Smiths, so that's why I play on a black Rickenbacker 330....
I am really glad of this guitar, it's a 1982 model, but I am wondering if the toaster pickups are originals? Do you know if Rickenbacker sold this model with toasters in the 80's? Because I always saw them with Hi gains...




Cheers,

Hi Louis, welcome to the RRF. Nice 330 you have, I believe toaster pickups were an available option throughout the 1980s.

That's a gorgeous 300, Marr is my favorite as well

Do the black toaster lines have dimples in the corners?

Nice guitar early 80s are fabulous guitars.

The screws in the corners of the toasters look like Phillips heads so those are probably stock to that guitar as one could order them on guitars back then.

Hello!

Thank you all for the kind comments

I don't see any dimples on the toasters, why?

I read somewhere on the forum that the toasters produced in the 80's are different from the ones available now. But what is the difference?
I have another 330 of 1996 that I will finally sell here on the forum which has the Hi gains (if interested you can PM me ), I first wanted to exhange the pickups with the old one but I'm not sure it will sound better... The two guitars have very different sounds, I think I'll keep the toasters and why not try some 80's Hi gains if I find a couple of them...

The toasters of the 80's and 90's are hotter wound, more similar to hi-gains. In '99 RIC switched to "scatterwound" 7.4kOhm toasters, more similar to the ones from the 60's. Those early 60's toasters, and the new reissues, the toaster black lines have little dimples in the corners. hard to see in photos, but easy to see in hand.

Oddly enough, now "hot toasters" are a bit of a rarity and some people seek them out. Whenever someone here says "maybe I'll unwind my hot toasters so they sound more vintage" I say nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

1982 is the first year since the early 70s that Rickenbacker started using them again on the B Series guitars which start to be produced in the summer of that year.

The sales sheet for the B Series mentioned, that these "Chrome Bar" pick ups were available to be ordered. But I have myself, never seen one with them factory installed other then the 3 Beatles instruments that they were trying to mimic. (One learns "never to say never" when discussing RICS mind you).

1982 is also the year they switched over from the Kluson tuners, to box Grovers... They look the same from the front, but very different at the back of the headstock.

There are very few hard dates for anything, but we can spot the changes by month by looking at examples collected in the RRF register.

My very first Rickenbacker was an April 1982 JG 620 guitar - (SN =VD 1084). It turns out to be among the last batch of six strings that had the Klusons. They seem to have been saving their dwindling supply of them for the 12 strings, and ran out entirely by early 1983.

Nice 330!

For what its worth, I have owned Rickenbackers as late as 1974 that still had toasters (perhaps as a custom order?), so it was only about 8 years that toasters were not an available option.. That's a very small period of time in Rickenbacker production, since the toasters were introduced in 1957.

I have seen 420 guitars as late as early 1975 with a toaster. But I think they last made them around 1972, and were going through what stock they had left in the factory. But it is not until 1982, that they start to make new ones.

So roughly ten years or so that they were out of production....

Scatterwounds have now been available as long as hot toasters were in production. Mind blown.

jdogric12 wrote:The toasters of the 80's and 90's are hotter wound, more similar to hi-gains. In '99 RIC switched to "scatterwound" 7.4kOhm toasters, more similar to the ones from the 60's. Those early 60's toasters, and the new reissues, the toaster black lines have little dimples in the corners. hard to see in photos, but easy to see in hand.

Oddly enough, now "hot toasters" are a bit of a rarity and some people seek them out. Whenever someone here says "maybe I'll unwind my hot toasters so they sound more vintage" I say nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah ah yes I think you're right, I'll keep my toasters, I am really glad of the sound they have.
I don't really understand what you say by "dimples"? The two black lines on each pickup?

And thank you all for your help and comments ))

Tchernoziom wrote: I don't really understand what you say by "dimples"? The two black lines on each pickup?

And thank you all for your help and comments ))

4 dots... one at each end of each line.

https://goo.gl/images/5GYxMR

jdogric12 wrote:

Tchernoziom wrote: I don't really understand what you say by "dimples"? The two black lines on each pickup?

And thank you all for your help and comments ))

4 dots... one at each end of each line.

https://goo.gl/images/5GYxMR

Oh I see.... There are no dots at all. It means they are not from early 80's?