Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I can't tell what's on the 360.

Nothing to add except cool early Dead shot!

Could be . . .
Or maybe with a gold TRC?

Thanks, Ron. What clued me in (to them maybe being VGs) are the large buttons; they don't look like Kluson metal ones.

Rickenbacker did indeed use pearl button Van Ghents on some of their deluxe guitars starting circa 1964. My '65 365 and a friend's '64 365 both had them. If you look at the 1968 Rickenbacker catalog, several of their more expensive guitars sport pearl button Van Ghents.

Van Ghents appeared much earlier than 1964. Possibly as early as 1961 or early 1962, typically on special builds.

They didn’t seem to appear on the normal lineup models until a brief period starting in 1964, and periodically afterward. Never seen them into the 70s though.

I wonder if Bob still has that guitar.

Thanks for the clarification, Collin. I've only seen a few Ricks with the Van Ghents, and they were '60s models. Page 6 of the 1968 catalog shows a couple of acoustics with the pearl button machines. one of the archtops has Grover Imperial stairstep machines on it.

fabandgear wrote:Thanks for the clarification, Collin. I've only seen a few Ricks with the Van Ghents, and they were '60s models. Page 6 of the 1968 catalog shows a couple of acoustics with the pearl button machines. one of the archtops has Grover Imperial stairstep machines on it.

Ah...but many of those instruments were built years before the catalog was put together.

In fact, the only instrument in that shot that was even possibly built in 1968 is the 381.

For a very brief moment, I owned a flattop acoustic that was the sister guitar to the one in that photo, but with "deluxe" inlays. It was clearly built around 1961 and featured Van Ghent tuners originally. It's now with Graham!

I would love one of those 390s Forrest.

If anyone here is interested, I have a NOS set of these for sale in the For Sale section. I bought them years ago from the RIC factory and never used them. They're still wrapped in their original tissue paper. PM me if you're interested.

Woodie wrote:If anyone here is interested, I have a NOS set of these for sale in the For Sale section. I bought them years ago from the RIC factory and never used them. They're still wrapped in their original tissue paper. PM me if you're interested.

So, you have identified the tuning keys in question in the GD photo as VGs?

If this is the guitar we're discussing, I'd say yes.

Same guitar; cool!