Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello everyone.

I would like to know, what is the timeline for the different fretboard woods Rickenbacker has used?

I know around 2012 they changed, and the fretboards used then were sort of an orangish-brown, very figured, and just beautifully finished, like you could swim in them.

Then, just after that, they turned to a sort of unappealing ****-brown without much character. Every one I ran across for a few years had kinda a yucky fretboard.

But, I've seen some recently with highly figured fretboards again, with alot of character. But, then again, some are that boring unappealing brown and lacking character.

So...does anyone know the timeline and the exact different fretboard woods Rickenbacker has switched to?

Thanks!

The switch appears to have started in late 2011. They went from African rosewood (bubinga) to Caribbean rosewood (chechen). The "figuring" was variable in any of the woods. There have been some beautifully figured chechen boards, and I've seen some plain-Jane bubinga boards, too.

So they have been Chechen since 2011 with no changes since then?

An occasional special with say, ebony, for example, but on production instruments, yes, chechen.

... not forgettting the 4002 of course, which featured a beautiful ebony fingerboard throughout its production run.

Ash

jps wrote:An occasional special with say, ebony, for example, but on production instruments, yes, chechen.

+1 on the Ebony