Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

What a damn shame.....with two bids too!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41439&item=7305240306&rd=1

Blech!!

The bastards are out in numbers on eBay this week!!!

What is wrong. I am bidding on this guitar. Am I stepping on someone's toes here? Are you guys complainging that someone modded it, or that there are already people bidding on it? I happen to LOVE CCR, and this mod is great for me!

Ben, it's just us purists griping about putting a Gibson hummer on a nice rick. It DOES look very strange and out of place, like a turd on a tuxedo...

Hey, maybe SOME people LIKE turds on their tuxedos!

It is strange that someone would mod a vintage reissue. You pay the extra money to get that Lennon vibe, and then drill holes in it, maybe route it. The seller thinks he did an improvement, and his reserve is probably over a $1000. At $500 it’s novel and it would be fun to play, at $1000 no way.

If you want a gibson, then don't beat about the bush, just buy one. Why try to turn a Ric into a Gibson?
What on earth makes someone think that putting a gibson humbucker on a Ric will make it better? Why try to change the best guitar in the world?

I think the voice of reason would be (as usual) somewhere between the statement "why change the best guitar in the world?" and "just buy a Gibson (if you want one)".

The fact that the guitar was once a vintage reissue, and should probably be valued more than a "reg'lar" Rick, makes this very visually disturbing. The builder no doubt had a concept in mind to extend the Rick capabilities and have a bit of Gibson graunch.

I think it's the lack of sensitivity in the addition, no matter how technically well it's done, that got our backs up. Besides, everybody knows the hummer should have gone in the MIDDLE position.

Next: "In search of eternal sustain: how to fill a 330 with concrete."

Your right Paul, but in my experience, people who 'muck about' with guitars of ANY manufacture, are just admitting that they are unhappy. A guitars sound is much more than just sticking a different p/up in it, as we all know....so why bother. Just move on to try other guitars & leave the Rics intact to those of us that apreciate them!

Anthony, I agree with you. In my three decades in design, one axiom proves itself over and over: if it LOOKS right, chances are it IS right (from a design standpoint).

Visually, this thingum screams out for justice with every splinter of its bruised carcass.

With all the choices of guitars today with humbuckers, and all the extremely flexible amps available, to hack up a classic for the sake of a half-baked idea is to invite the sort of derision that this thing has had heaped upon it.

To do something just because you can is no justification except as a timewaster.

Paul, if you don't mind me asking.....which auto school of design do you work for? Guitars and cars are my passion. Well, females are much higher on my list but I am already married with (6) children. Thanks, J

John, I work as IDS 3D Manager--full-time Faculty and Administrator--for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. It's the largest private design school in the USA, with over 7,000 students. Our Industrial Design school will have about 400 come September.

You guys, what is wrong with you? So they put a Gibson humbucker on a Rickenbacker and you guys think that is weird? True, it is unusual, BUT IT was done by John Fogerty of CCR. Now, I could mention mods that were made to certain guitars owned by, say, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison and you guys would say "lets trick out my 325!" And that is fine and good. W

While I think most Rickenbacker mods are weird, it is an instrument. And, this mod is correctly compared in the description to one done by a famous guitarist. I think it is great, and it saves me the time to have to do it. I am not trying to be mean to you guys, but this form has LOTS of stuff about updating Rickenbackers to look like Lennons and McCartneys.

I want to win, but the auction I fear the price will rise higher than what I have. Oh well, I will save the money for my 331L Lightshow!

Hey, Scoob, don't put hummers on your lightshow!

I think that we aired out our views pretty well. Nothing personal to you, Scoobster! Some agreed, more disagreed.

IMO, the original mods that non-tecchie John did to his 325 didn't improve the original design, but didn't hurt it too much. The oven knob/gold guard thing has a visual impact that the silver knobs or Hofner knobs did not have. The addition of the Bigsby was of course a functional improvement and the black paint work could be considered a natural progression with the aim of more stage impact. But there's simply no way you could look at John's 325 at any stage in its mods and be offended.

The late '60s was a time of some pretty atrocious taste in clothes, music, and instrument mods, too. To amateurishly strip the Casino and the J 160's in an attempt to "go natural" was pretty ill-advised. The stripped 325 now at the Lennon Museum in Japan LOOKS like a stripped black guitar; it will never glow like it once did.

Their attempts at psychedelia on their instruments were also ill-conceived and executed even worse, IMO.

We expressed our opinion, you did yours. You buy the guitar, you do what you want with it; it's your property, after all!

But don't expect everybody to agree with you or John Fogerty, for that matter.