Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

For John Hall; what becomesof[or has become of]
the many Rick prototypes produced over the years?
Do all still exist? Were some made, then later bandsawed into pieces at the factory? Some do exist at the factory still, correct? And others
that are out there, how did they come to leave the factory to get into the publics hands?Are there any policies from headquarters on this subject? Inquiring minds would like to know...

As of this moment I still cannot access the AGR ...I am having MSN problems in western Washington and it appears to be an area thing.

If this is concerning the bass that is at my shop right now ,I will explain what it is .I know this bass very well. And it's history.

This will know doubt lead to a denial/debate ...but I was there ,I have paperwork and the main character has saddly passed away.But ....I can shed light to the origins and what /why it was made.

Mark: This is one of the reasons why a forum format is sometimes helpful. If your browser is working then your are able to read and post without some of the complications that accompany newsgroups. You won't miss posts, they are kept here for you to see anytime and they are searchable. So Mark, please start at the beginning and give us the interesting details with regard to this bass.

Mark, if you're referring to my intro question/topic here, No, I'm Not referring to whatever you have You are referring to.I am putting out a general question regarding Anything Anyone may have on the subject of old or newer Rick prototypes.

At the moment I have a bass that was made in the late 1970's and sat in Bill Meyers office for some time before it was sold.

this bass was bought by david Axt off of Ebay and was stolen property.

The origins of the instrument are ,as I recal ,are this.The 4002 was prototyped and put into a limited production .the first few had some variations ...very minor .like how the binding on the neck was installed(the depth) and the material the guards were made of.
From this first series of basses came the feeling that we (the factory ) were making a step into the 'new age ' of rickenbacker and out of the 1950's!
there were high hopes for this bass.The staff really got behind it and was hoping for some other changes to come.
We talked about making several instruments from the materials that were in the factory that were not being used.
We had a room off the binding area in the woodshop,that was full of Brazilian rosewood fretboard blanks for guitars!There was also Ebony blanks in this room and it was about 10 feet by 10 feet packed to the rafters!
In the wood glue up area ,the place where all the boards came into the factory and were stored,there were stacks of interesting maple .Birdseyed,flamed,curly etc.This was set aside and NOT USED!!!
At the time there was no limited addition series and no custom shop.
The feeling was ,you could not call up the supplier and get more ."It just didn't grow on trees " was the line floating around the plant!
Well from this bunch of unused wood came several ideas.
the plant foreman really liked them and no tooling or parts needed to be bought.
The plant superintendent felt it was a waste of time and money and it was not our jobs to be developing new product.
He was always a source of no support to use .At this time in my life I understand his position ,but at the time felt he was just an old stuffed shirt and could not see past the end of his nose.
After Bill Meyers and I did inventory in the old tin shed out back of the spray booth,we got to talking about what was going to happen to the stuff in the shed and could it be put to use ?
He said maybe.

well this is sidetracking a little but to get to the point on the bass...this was born of these talks.
Mike Baccarini (one of the guys that worked in the assembly area) wanted to buy a bass.
BUT....he wanted to have something special.
The guys in checkout had noticed that the 4000 bass had what appeared to have a hotter pickup than the 4001 and so he chose to have a custom 4000 bass made.
The bass was to have an additional fret ,walnut wings,Schaller tuners (M4 mini bass keys),ebony fretboard,pearl dots,black guard,mono jack and low Z jack,bone nut (real bone not immatation bone),Rotosound swing bass strings and a birdeyed maple body.
The neck was an off the rack 4000 neck with out the thru body feature.
The guard was stock but needed to have a section milled out to fit the body /neck area for the additional fret.
The binding on the bass does not go all the way down to the edge of the ebony /maple joint as was very common on the 4002,but rather was cut in like the standard 4001 necks.
This bass was made with a lot of pride and lots of care went into it.
We all knew who it was for and only the upper crust of the crew worked on it .
The only names that are inside of it are Bryan Cery and the initials JCM.
Not even Maria ,who did the paste wood filling on thousands of instruments got her name in this.

Well I have the photos ,as does David Axt.and this may not be a 4002 'official prototype' ,but the guys in the plant took more pride in making it.
This was an idea that was kicked around with some other instruments but we either never made them or they went away .I have no idea where they went.
They were;
a mahogany backed 325 guitar that had a birdeyed top,2 humbuckers from the 481,the tailpiece from a steel,ebony fretboard,no pickguard except the sharkfin was there (the controls came up thru the wood and had a plate on the back, and was walnut -bursted.
a 4001 bass,no body binding no pickguard and was also walnut bursted.The controls came up thru the back and it too had a plastic control plate.

The last one was a small (3/4 sized )360 body with a wide neck(1&11/16" at the nut) for the 12 strings and a modified steel tailpiece ,no R on this baby and was fireglo.This had only a switch and 4 controls ,was mono and was yummy.

I saw these once and they were gone.I don't know if Bill and Dick made these from our talks or what the deal was but they vanished .
I wish that more of the staff from that time would come on line and join this group.
I'd love to see if they can remember any thing about these and other tales.

I wonder if this was another of those guitars that went out under the roll up doors along the side of the old factory. Why do I think that Ward Deaton, not to mention the accounting department, probably had no knowledge of this bass?

It's okay to discuss this now. . . the statute of limitations is now long expired!

No I have a copy of the invoice of sale for this one .

Hello to all...I've been sniffing around the web looking for definitive info on my 4080/12 bass and twelve string, including asking John Williams for an appraisal in this forum. I missed seeing this 'prototype' discussion until now, and I'd like to ask Mark the MD and anyone else who might know: is it possible that my guitar was a prototype? It was described to me as such when I bought it, and I was told at the time that Ric hadn't yet decided to produce them, but it does have a ser. no.:PL7979. Could this have been a prototype, and if so, would that affect its value?

In the mid seventies, I worked for Electro String Instrument Corporation, the manufacturing plant for Rickenbacker guitars. I performed a variety of jobs in assembly and eventually got to work in musician check-out. This work consisted of stringing the guitars & basses, setting the action at the nut & bridge, setting the intonation at the bridge and adjusting out any bow or dip in the neck. We would then play the instruments to check for any buzzing at the frets and to make sure they were fully functional.
One of the check-out guys, Jim Rutledge (a great bass player), wanted to buy a bass and ended up picking out some nice maple for a simple yet great sounding 4000. I believe he ended up buying it at the Rickenbacker sales office across town for wholesale.

This was also around the time that the company started building the 4002 with it's ebony fret board, lo-Z output and Schaller tuning pegs. We were all excited about this model and felt that it was as good of a bass as you could get anywhere at any price. One day it occurred to me that perhaps I too could get a bass built like Jim. The 4000 always appealed to me for a couple of reasons. I liked the way the body looked & felt without the binding, and the single pick-up configuration just seemed hotter. I approached Bill Meyers the plant foreman about having a bass built and he said "I don't see why not. Why don't you pick out some nice wood for it?"

Mark Arnquist the lead man in final assembly showed me some amazing hard woods and I selected a piece of birdseye maple. The 4002's were very cool, inspiring the lo-Z output & ebony fretboard (with an additional fret - why not?), and McCartney's bass (we actually got to play it when it came in for a "tune-up" during the Wings Over America tour) was the inspiration for the walnut head-stock wings.
When the bass (serial # RE2700) was finished we were all pretty excited about how it turned out. This was NOT a prototype; it was simply made to my specification but also showed what some possibilities were, if the sales and marketing people had the inclination. It went over to the sales office along with that day's production but then came back to the plant and sat in Bill's office for awhile. I don't remember exactly but I think we were waiting for me to get the money together.

In any case, Bill ended up selling it to me on an Electro String invoice (not Rickenbacker) and I proudly took it home that day out the front door of the plant office.
I played the bass for awhile in '79 & '80 in a trio called "Passin' Thru" with my wife Colleen and our friend Kit Lloyd. It then made the move with us to northern California in 1981 and unfortunately saw little use for years. I dinked around with it occassionaly and eventually built in some active electronics (compressor/enhancer) on a new pickguard in the mid 90's. All in all a wonderful bass, now here's the amazing story:

In March of '98 our home in Escalon, CA is burglarized and the Rick is stolen along with a 1991 Dobro 60D (ser#62991). We contacted the Sheriff's Office and they came out for a report. I also notified our insurance company and submitted a claim. In April I received replacement cost from the insurance company based on the 1998 price of the current 4003.
Time marches on, the loss of the Rick has been grieved, and I never expect to see it again. Then on October 11, 2000, I get a phone call out of the blue from none other than Mark Arnquist (haven't seen or talked to him in twenty-odd years). "Hey Mike, how ya doin'? Guess what… I've got your bass!"
I was speechless… "Mark, did you know it was stolen?!?" He just assumed that I has sold it over the years. Anyway, a customer of Mark's had just walked into his guitar shop in Everett, WA… "Hey Mark, Didn't you use to work at Rickenbacker? Look what I just got from a music dealer in Florida off of E-bay!"

Mark immediately recognizes the bass and tracked me down. (Thank you Mark, thank you!) To wrap up this story, law enforcement resumes investigation, Mark's customer eventually gets his money back from VISA after much effort, and my wonderful Rickenbacker bass is once again home after buying it back from the insurance company.
During one of our many phone conversations while the bass was at Mark's shop, he told me "Maybe this is a no-brainer, but I think God wants you to have this bass back".
Ya think? Well I can tell you this: RE2700 will not live out it's days just sitting in the corner of our music room. I'm currently playing it regularly in the Christian rock band "Arcturus". It's got round-wounds on it again, I'm playing it through a modified Hartke Kickback 1200 and it sounds GREAT!

Mike, I'm so glad that you got the bass back. I saw the bass on Ebay awhile ago, in fact I was thinking about placing a bid, but changed my mind, (whoa) ! Yea, Mark's an amazing guy, wait until you hear this story pertaining to Mark's "Music Connection" shop & my Combo 800. I'll email you with this one. Anyway, let me say again "congrats" on getting it back ! Hope you enjoy it for many years to come !