Rickenbacker Tailpieces

maltingsaudio

 My knowledge of Rickenbacker is sketchy, and as the collective we are looking at getting a 3 something 12  now started looking at Rickies and @jackorion for sale post in particular. (Although no pennies at the moment) . I would have expected in my naivety that that guitar would have had a tailpiece with the R in it, I’m definitely not casting aspersions on that guitar, I just don’t know.Further research doesn’t produce any real answer as to which models get the R in the tailpiece and which have plain etc. 

Can anyone shed shed any wisdom ?

jackorion

Hi,

I guess it's to do with what Era they're Reissues of - up to the mid sixties I believe they all had the trapeze tailpeice and then they changed to the R-style in the mid sixties...

Mine's a 63 Re-issue, like George Harrison's first Ricky as used for Hard Days Night, but his second 12 string which he used for the concert at shea stadium had the R tailpiece and was also the rounded body style like current 360 models

dogload

Many people replace the R with a trapeze (especially on a 12). The R can be liable to break and some people find them a pain for changing strings.

NervousJohn

That one is an old shape 360 reissue. It will also have the old style toaster low output pickups. It’s also bound which is unusual. V pretty though. 

A modern 330 is a similar shap (pointy horns) and a dot neck. It will have current spec “hi gain” pickups and an R tailpiece. There was a phase in the 90s when they were prone to break if scratched. Mine did.... the replacement took a while but has been fine for the last 10 years. Restringing is easy, just a wee bit fiddly. Actually I find the worst bit the strings in the headstock channels. 

pmg

Hate restringing my Ric