![]() ![]() He retained the same hardware on the buitar which produced a truly unique look to the instrument which now was s relatively glossy black with gold pickguird and headstock accent. The last modification was a new paint/refinish job that changed it from the natual/blonde original finish to the Black finish. Late in 1962 it looked like most of the tinkering with the guitar tapered off. John’s friend Chris Huston, a guitar player for a fellow Liverpool group “The Undertakers” purportedy had the first Bigsby in Liverpool on his Gibson Les Paul Junior and helped procure the bigsby piece for John, and helped him install it right on the counter at Hessy’s Music Store in Liverpool. The unit often threw the strings out of tune after some use and became impractical (besides being ugly and just plain weird how the arm moves), and John replaced the unit with a Bigsby tremelo. The Kauffmann Vibrola tremelo unit on the rear end of the guitar face was another piece to be replaced. The volume and tone knobs went through a number of iterations, finally settling on 4 Burns type aluminum knobs that remain to this day. ![]() Over time John made a number of mods to the guitar. The guitar was a natural/honey finish 4/5 scale solid top guitar, alder body and neck, 2″ thick with 1/8″ ply back, single gold lucite control plate, four rotary controls with Rogan knobs, three ’short pole’ toaster style pickups, Kauffman vibrola, standard 3 position pickup selector switch, extended jackplate, open backed Grover Statite tuners, and Rickenbacker open top roller bridge. Lennon purchased back in 1960 at either Steinway Musikhaus or Musikhaus Rotthoff music stores in Hamburg Germany. Though this pictured guitar is not John’s, this does show how John’s guitar looked after his mods (bigsby and tuning knobs). The model was actually called a “Capri” and with serial number V81 makes it the 2nd guitar in production. John’s Rickenbacker model was born in 1958, probably late in the year and in itself is a rare guitar – apart from the obvious unique quality of being John Lennon’s guitar. Rickenbacker 325 John’s Rickenbacker 1958 325 “Capri” ![]()
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