Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm wondering about the stamping on early 60's Rics. The most commonly seen Rics from this era have the two letters to indicate date and month, and 3 digits to indicate the sequence in the year. eg DG 865.

At the beginning of the year, or if the sequence reaches 999 it goes back to 1 and starts over.

I've seen a few examples of low number Rics. And it appears that they only stamp the required digits. eg DH 18, not DH 018.

What about the first digits in the sequence though? Has anyone ever seen or owned a very low number Ric and can they advise whether just a single digit is stamped.

eg DA 8, DH 5.

Or did they stamp DA 08, DH 05 ?

Glen, it could be that when the changed from the old-style 'Roman' to the thinner, more 'Greek' style(non-serif, larger stampings) in mid-late 1966 they started putting the zero before everything else, and at least had 3 digits. I own KA 016, and I know that's in the 70's, but I know of some mid-late 60's guitars that have a zero. I think there is a 365 on G-base that is advertised as #GA 001, which would sound like the first Rickenbacker made in 1967. McCartney's bass is DA 23, and has NO zero. On a lot of the early guitars the whole sequence is on one side of the jackplate as well.

For what it's worth...my 4001 is KA 002

I was wondering about the serial # on my '86 330 JG...ZD 1000. I wondered if it was the 1000th guitar made that month or that year, or maybe the 1000th 330, etc.

My '67 360/12 is s/n GA 010. The tenth Rickenbacker of 1967

Thanks all for the input on this question. 1966 appears to be that last year that zero's were omitted before low numbers. (It was also the first year that they didn't revert to zero when the sequence reached 999).

We've yet to see if they omitted the zero before single digit numbers in the '61 - '65 range though.