This is one of the old Rickenbachers famous for either their strong clean tones or raging tones under higher amp gains. It has a strong metallic resonance that is tamed to a Player's preference by how tightly the body is packed with a dampening medium; Crumpled newspaper was packed in at the factory, but a number of other materials such as towels and rolled thin rubber sheeting has also been used; Even sand was known to be used back in the heyday of Hawaiian Beach Music (and just might be the purpose of the mysterious tar packing of the wires and pots that is not uncommon to find ...such as this one). Old Ricks are THE icon to Wang Wang Blues yer hula girls' scruples away.
These pictures were taken at the request of an inquirer, and were taken on my portable bench during a drying / curing time period for another guitar being worked on this bench; And thus why some tools and supplies are also on the bench while taking these pics.
This is a Model 59 / NS stamped steel body with original bakelite bridge, nut and all screws. I had previously identified this body's year as 1937, but upon closer inspection I cannot be sure because (1) there are no serial numbers on the body itself and, (2) what I can see of the pots embedded in the "bakelite tar", they don't look like the larger pots of that period and, (3) the logo decal looks like it once had a similar metal emblem plate screwed over it and, (4) I still have to research the period that a decal headstock logo might provide an era period for the body and if there was a year for change-over to a metal plate logo and, (5) there is no way to yet know if the pickup mounting bracket with patent numbers are definitely original to the body or not (I will bet it is).
This Steel is missing it's original pickup and potentiometer knobs. The tuners are not original. Rickenbacher used several different tuner sets over the years based upon what batches they acquired. There are faint marks of Kluson enclosed strip tuners in this Steel's original headstock paint.
The parts this Steel needs to be playable (understatement !) are a pickup and volume / tone knobs.
See remarks noted on certain pictures below: |