Bassassin

No experience of Tru-oil but this is Danish oil (more coats than I can remember) on my Ibby SR500: Very happy it turned out a lot glossier than I expected. Me like shiny thing.

@NikNik - in fairness to Prowla, he does own several MIJ and MIK Fakers as well as his Ricks so his opinion is pretty objective. Despite him being a proper Rickenbacker fanboy!

Never mind the lack of markings - that looks 100% like a Matsumoku 3-point to me. Original on my Mat-built Westbury:

Genuinely curious about this. I do come from the perspective of not being a Rick owner & not being able to A/B a 4001/4003 with a 4004 - but do they sound broadly the same then? I've spent enough time around Rick players & fans to know that the alchemy claimed as the constituents of the classic Rick tones is a combination of the various idiosyncracies of the instrument - the single-coil hi-gains, the way they're mounted, the .0047 capacitor, even the much debated & much maligned hollow tailpiece. The 4004 has humbuckers directy mounted to the timber and a high-mass Schaller bridge - I don't know if it has the bass cut cap but I'd assume it doesn't. You'd think it would have a lot of inherent tonal difference purely based on the nuts & bolts of its components & build. Strange story about the 4002 @NikNik, I never saw these on Ebay! Wonder if there will be a 4002 reissue after all, if JH's really gone...

I love the look & willingness to modernise of the 4004 - but that stuck in the 60s pickup positioning makes no sense to me. 4004 with 4002 pickup positioning? Or why not a 4002 reissue? Wonder why that's never happened.

If I didn't already have a (seemingly permanently delayed) SB B&G project, I'd be very interested - looks like everything's there, and it just needs a bit of sanding and a few coats of Danish oil to finish it. Think I'd move the output back to the proper position though Not sure if the pickup's original (in which case it may have failed, as mine has) or if it's a Rautia replica - these are £100+ on their own.

Actuall the more I cogitate on the Harley/Rickenbacker parallels, the more persuaded I am. In fact I think they should emulate HD and give all their basses names that sound like gay porn stars - V Rod Muscle, Fat Boy, Softail Slim, Bad Boy, Street Rod, Street Bob - and his good buddy Fat Bob...

Well, of course you can, now. When Uncle Leo was conceptualising cheap mass-production basses & guitars, there wasn't a range of necks. Just the one. With his choice of radius.

That's what Harley riders tell themselves anyway. Repeatedly, I'd imagine. Riders of other motorcycles may take a different view.

Over the decades Glastonbury has gradually transitioned from awful hippy dismalness to trendy hipster dismalness. Aside from the fact I despise festivals, I've never been remotely tempted either by the lineups or the event itself. Although I understand French brutalists Gojira are on this year - possibly the only band I'd actually bother watching since Tool played it in '94.

This, in theory, is of course true. However it's interesting how uncommon it actually is to see such bespoke bridges. And, thinking about it, curious that Leo Fender (whose entire ethos was about simple mass-production of electric guitars) specified fully adjustable bridges on the majority of his designs. You'd think a radius-matched tune-o-matic type would have been perfectly practical & more economical.

It might quell the author's conscience a little to remember that purchasing a vintage 4001 such as this is a Hall-guilt free undertaking. Back when checkerboard 4001s (with crushed pearl FWIs & gap tooth bridge, of course!) were being made, little Johnny Hall would've still been in the back yard with his GI Joes, & half a gallon of gas siphoned out of Papa F.C's Studebaker, playing My Lai.

Depending on the component & how much physical contact it has, you can get decent results from rattlecan paint: This got cleaned up to remove the corrosion & the pitting from the plating, surface roughened to key it, coat of grey metal primer then satin black: Did this 8 or 9 years ago, still looks as good now - although if I played with a pick & rested my hand on it, I don't think it would be too durable.

Got a Hipshot on my Kasuga Faker - does everything right that the Rick unit does wrong. Intonation, individual string height, string spacing, no rattly mutes (ironically meaning you can palm-mute while using a pick) - and as a bonus it doesn't bend! Only downside - mine is the brass version and it weighs six metric tonnes. If I was buying another I'd go for an ally one.

Well that's exactly what I said at first, but when you think about it, that's a practical way to cheddar few pounds from a heavy bass.

Prefer lefty for the same reasons as most everyone else, but not too bothered in practice. Although all a bit academic for the last few years, our drummer emigrated to the Carribbean to get away from us...

I'm completely confident that's not the case with any bargain I've ever had. You'd be amazed how many people assume that dirty old guitar that's been in the loft or standing in the corner for 25 years must be worth sod-all. The guy who sold me the £90 Ibanez Roadster had owned it from new. Turned out he was an ex-bandmate of my band's guitarist.

This is an oddity and I'd be inclined to think its not a UK-market model. I remember the early '00s SB models, certainly don't recall a bolt-on 6er with SB-R inlays though. Although Aria slipped in popularity & quality in their export markets, in Japan the range has always been varied, with lots of mid & high-end models that never made it over here. Unfortunately I can't find any Aria catalogues later than '96, at which point there were still "proper" SBs in their Japan-market range. Will keep digging though. Oh, and the seller's definitely a deluded loony!

The trashy-looking Chinese knockoffs, which are sold badged as Rickenbacker through outlets like AliExpress. They're crap counterfeits, but counterfeits nonetheless.

I've had one or two... SQ serial MIJ Squier Precision, Ebay, £130. A-serial MIJ Squier Precision, Gumtree, £30. E-serial MIJ Squier Strat - £70, local car boot. Ibanez RS924 Roadster, 1983, absolutely mint, with original hard case - £90, Gumtree. 1961 Watkins Rapier 3 guitar - £6.50, local car boot. Antoria 2354B MIJ EB3 copy - £30, local car boot. Aria pro SB-Elite Black & Gold - trade for a bitsa Jazz bass that probably cost about £40 in parts. Westone Thunder 1 guitar - £5, local car boot. Westbury Track 2 bass - £50, Ebay. Westbury Standard guitar, £60, local charity shop. This isn't everything, by a long way - ten or so years ago I was making a living of sorts by finding bargains like these, tidying them up and selling them on - and in fairness many of them were serious projects when I got hold of them & required a lot of work to put right.

In part though that's the point I was making. A counterfeit is, by legal definition, an imitation item which is knowingly being passed off as genuine. None of the vintage or current copies pretended they were actual Rickenbackers, ergo they are not, and cannot be considered to be, counterfeit, regardless of infringing RIC's copyrights. I'm very familiar (as you know!) with the various grey areas in RIC's trademark situation but I expect their approach regarding actual legally-defined counterfeits involves other areas of law beyond the cease & desist letters that copy makers/sellers get.

Well, I have (which is where my understanding of RIC's position on all copies comes from) and I don't.

Point of order here - but an important one I think. I've not visited TB for a very long time so I haven't seen the threads, but legally a "counterfeit" is a very different thing to a copy. No vintage Rickenfaker was ever manufactured or retailed as a counterfeit, and neither were any of the recent branded copies like Rockinbetter or Retrovibe. The only counterfeiting I'm aware of is the Rickenbacker-logo'd trash available through AliBaba, Tradetang or similar. I'm unsure why TB would have removed discussions about Fakers from their site - RIC has no legal right to intervene or have any involvement in simply talking about these instruments. JH, and RIC in general's crusade against all copies, is their legal obligation under US law to be seen to challenge unauthorised use of their registered trade dress designs. If they don't, they lose the exclusive right to use these designs, in the way Fender & Gibson did in the 70s. From that perspective it's understandable they'd move to attempt to stop the sale of Fakers through BC & TB - regardless of how little weight legal threats - particularly outside of the US - would have. It's all about being seen to be doing something.

Apropos of nothing - apparently Mr Hall is, or at least was, at some point, a bass player. A very long time ago I had correspondence with him which started as hostile and borderline litigious (it stemmed from an innocent inquiry regarding Fakers, on the old Rickenbacker official forum), but actually ended up being disconcertingly cordial. He mentioned his own musical dabblings at some point, I can't remember why. Regardless, the sum total of his input regarding the design of the 4000 series basses amounts to absolutely sweet bugger-all.

Stuart Adamson. I was a massive fan and he was a huge influence on me as a musician & composer - to me he was an inspirational guitar player and an incredibly gifted songwriter. Also he was the only musician I'd call myself a fan of who I had the pleasure of meeting - a genuinely humble, friendly and sweet man who seemed very grounded. I had no idea he was as troubled as he must have been and his death was a huge shock.