Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Glen,
I was looking at your site and saw the tiny picture of the Fireglo 1996 that John Lennon used as a back-up to the '64 325.Have you ever found out anything else about the whereabouts of this axe? It seems to be one of those lost Beatle pieces, like the stolen j160 or the stolen 1965 360/12. Someone has a real classic on their hands.
Thanks

Hi Frank. That's correct. Someone may have a real classic on their hands without knowing it. Unfortunatly there has been no success finding the serial number of Lennon's 1996. There are a number of '64 1996's with 2 o'clock soundhole still around. Could one of these be his? Without that number we don't know. Rose Morris is gone, and the company who took over didn't keep any of their records from the 60's. So it doesn't look good. Even Ric wouldn't have that serial number on file. Wouldn't we love to know where that '62 J160 is. That could probably be identified by serial number and lennon's wear marks. The '65 360/12 is the other missing classic, true.

Frank and Glen: You really have to marvel how these instruments haven't surfaced. How would you keep it a secret that you had one of The Beatles' guitars.

I wondered if anyone has a better picture of that axe. Because I'm willing to bet it could be identified by it's Fireglo finish(if it's still Fireglo).
I agree Peter. You'd figure that the person would come crawling out and quietly sell this to Sotheby's or something. How do you authenticate something that could have been stolen? "Um yeah, John Lennon's guitar fell from the sky and...the bidding starts at...."

Frank: This is the best photo that I have of Lennon's 1996 The statute of limitations must have run out on this theft by now. I think someone has this instrument and has no idea.

Thanks Peter!
I'll have to check Glen's site and see if there are any with a similar pattern of Fireglo.
It'll be nearly impossible to figure out, but a great lunch time detective case.
Gosh, that Fireglo looks good!

Frank: With the support of the gloabal community, I am confident that we will learn more about Lennon's 1996, which when I think of it has been described as "a loner." Perhaps it was returned. BTW, I notice that this is the 5,000th post to the Rickenbacker Forum.

I'm posting on voxtalks as well.
We'll see what they've got to say.

There has been a thread running on Voxtalks that looked like showing up some new info on this question but it seems to have been proven false yet again. At least we know that May Pang never had the RM1996

Probably much more unique about Lennons 1996 than the color is the grain pattern in the Maple itself. I think that that would provide "fingerprint" reliable proof more than anything else. So I guess we need to encourage everyone who has one to send in pictures. It could happen.
VW

Hi gang -

It's my humble opinion that this was a borrowed guitar, perhaps from another band, and never belonged to Lennon at all. Maybe he was intrigued by it, and wanted to try it out for a show or two.

Because

-It wasn't black. He would not have been using a non-black guitar during this period in the Beatles career, when uniform image was so important. Why would he refinish his Maple 325 to black, and then start playing a fireglo guitar?

-We only see it once. (No?)

Regards to all

Nick

Some photos have turned up showing that Lennon had this guitar at his home studio in 67-68. There is the theory that he acquired the guitar as a temporary replacement to his '64 when the headstock was busted while on tour. There are pictures located on the beatles.com site showing the 1996 being used in a live performance and the Beatles are wearing the same suits as seen in the photo that Peter has posted on this site. Who knows where it is?

Here is a thread over on Vox Talks that has some good info and pictures posted for reference:

http://www.voxtalks.com/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/UltraBoard.pl?Action=ShowPost&Board=VT2&Post=949&Idle=0&Sort=0&Order=Descend&Page=4&Session=

Thanks so much Nick, the pictures on that link are absolutely fascinating.

It's interesting to think that maybe he preferred to use his 1996 in his home studio, rather than his 325/58 or 64. Maybe he was kind of sick of them.

NickD

John gave the RM1996/325FG to Ringo who owns and treasures it to this day.

My Beatles Gear book states what Karl just said.
He gave it to Ringo and he still has it today.
Is that wrong?
Got some inside info Mr. Thiel?