A Special Order "Old-Style Body" Rickenbacker 370

This 15-inch-wide full-sized thin-body (1 1/2 inches) guitar weighs 8.90 lbs. and has a nut width of just under 1 5/8 inches and a scale length of 24 3/4 inches. This guitar features offset cutaways with rounded horns providing a "sweeping crescent" profile across both. Maple body with a bound "cat's-eye" or slash soundhole and single binding on the top and back, three-piece maple/walnut/maple neck with a medium profile, and bound rosewood fretboard with 24 frets and triangular sparkle crushed pearl inlays. Five-piece (maple/walnut/maple/walnut/maple) headstock with white opaque plastic logo plate with raised black lettering. Individual Grover Rotamatic tuners with half-moon metal buttons. Three Rickenbacker chrome bar "toaster" pickups with outputs of 8.18k, 7.89k, and 8.43k. Two-piece split-level white plastic pickguard with four screws. Two controls (one volume, one tone) plus six-way pickup selector switch, all on lower level of pickguard. The potentiometers are stamped "R137 8122" (CTS June 1981). Seven-sided black plastic knobs with metal tops. Inside the control cavity written in pencil is "360 - O - S / 12 2 Aug / D, B,". Rickenbacker six-saddle bridge and Rickenbacker "R" tailpiece. "Rick-O-Sound" stereo and "Standard" jack inputs on a metal plate (with the serial number "VA [January 1982] 069"). There is a miniscule amount of belt-buckle scarring on the back (not through to the wood) otherwise this guitar is in near mint (9.25) condition. Housed in its original Rickenbacker black hardshell case with blue plush lining (9.00).

The six position rotary switch selects the pickups in the following order: 1. Neck ; 2. Neck + Middle; 3. Middle
4. Middle + Bridge; 5. Bridge; 6. Neck + Bridge.

Almost certainly a one-of-a-kind special order guitar - the only one we have ever seen with just a volume and tone control and a six-way pickup selector switch. Although shipped in January 1982 this guitar features an OS (old-style) body with squared double-binding (as opposed to the new-style introduced in 1964 that had a rounded top-edge which did not allow for binding on the top). "SO (Special Order) examples available 1964-1984" Tony Bacon & Paul Day. The Rickenbacker Book, p.81.

"Models 360-375 -- The third division of the 1958 Thin Hollow Body Series consisted of full sized guitars with the Deluxe features. The body shape was the same as Models 330-345 from 1958 to the summer of 1964; then it changed...The guitars from this group were the finest and most expensive of the Thin Body Capri guitars. They had neck binding, triangle finger board inlays, and body binding…The factory introduced the genuine Fireglo finish in 1960…[and] after the initial shock of its stunning effect, Fireglo became a universal favorite and the trademark color for Rickenbacker guitars…In 1964 Rickenbacker changed the body style of the Models 360-375 significantly…The company achieved the new shape by rounding the top edge on the face of the guitar's body…The new design did not allow for binding on the top front edge of the guitar, however bound tear drop sound holes became standard" (Richard R. Smith, The History of Rickenbacker Guitars, pp. 171-175).

"The top model of the deluxe Capri group, the 375 has three pickups and a vibrato...Beginning in mid 1964, models in the 360 series were specified with rounded top edges and binding on the back only" (George Gruhn and Walter Carter, Electric Guitars and Basses: A Photographic History, p. 228).