I was kind of a Ric collector for maybe twenty years from about 1990 to 2010, I bought some new ones but also bought a lot of Rics sight unseen on ebay, some came very nicely set up and played like a dream some came with really crappy setups and played terrible. Some I bought used in local music stores. In all I would say I owned at least 30 Rics during that time probably more, everything from a 1972 jetglo fretless to a 2009 midnight blue 4003, a couple of V-63's, a lot of early 80's Rics, 70's, I had a nice 75, a 77, a 78, a 79 which I still have, several early 80's split pickguard 4003's several early 80's 4001's, a 1985 fretless which I still own, three different fretless Rics, 90's Rics, 2000's Rics etc etc. Some had thin necks, some had medium necks, and some had what some people might consider to be big necks but the one thing i learned from that experience is that 99% of Rickenbacker playability problems are from people screwing with them or neglecting them or both because in the end all of them played nice and sounded good after I played around with them. I bought an early 80's split pickguard 4003 with wrong replacement pickups only because i wanted the color, I bought used early 4003 pickups on ebay put them in and it played and sounded great. Even brand new Rics sometimes need to be set up. In all that time, I never had a Ric that was a POS something that I thought was hopeless, something that had been made shoddily. With all those basses you would think that I would have experienced at least some of the thousands of problems you hear people here complaining about but nope, no significant tail lift, no paint blisters, no weak or dead pickups, no tree trunk necks, I did pop a neck on one but it was my fault not the basses, I fixed it, it fell over backwards once, I fixed it again, still have it, plays and sounds great. I guess I learned through trial and error.
...but one never knows.
. I found the neck dive irritating, but my 4001 was still my #1 for 15 years anyway, so it was not a show stopper.
