Vester Rick 360 copy

The guitar is from the "Vester Traditional Series". The model is the "Venus 67". The semi-pro musician I bought it from purchased it new in Germany in late 2006. It had been languishing amongst dozens of other guitars in a back room. Vester went under in the mid-1990s apparently due to a Fender lawsuit, so it had probably been in stock for some time.

It is a very rare, Korean-made copy of a classic Rickenbacker 360 six-string semi-acoustic, new-style (NS). I've never seen a Vester Rick before, in all my time researching Rick copies, and can track nothing about them down on the web.

A more deluxe model than the Rick 330, the Rick 360 isn't copied much. Most current Rick copies around are of the 330 and 325 models, built by the likes of Tokai, Riff, Indie (UK guitar shops are full of these three makes), Johnson (found readily in Germany), and Dillion (can be bought in Canada), all made in apparent defiance of US copyrights in Korea or, increasingly, China (I write apparent, because as far as I am aware, no cases against Asian Rick copy companies have actually gone to court, and there have thus been no rulings).

My guitar's colour is Jetglo (that's black to you and me). It has the shark's fin inlays for fret markers, white-bound body (at the back), a nicely done, white-bound "slash" sound hole, and a narrow fretboard. It has the rounded cutaways of the new-style 360 (made from the mid-1960s). The binding is yellowing nicely.

The guitar has a bound set neck, two toaster-like pickups (no high-gain bobbin pick-ups like the modern Rick 330s and 360s), and 24 frets. It has the usual three setting pick-up select. It has even got the "Rick-O-sound" stereo input (not, of course, labeled as Rick-O-Sound!) that no-one seems to use on the 360, as well as the typical mono one.

Neck width at the nut and the twelfth fret matches the original exactly, as do most other body dimensions, including an exact headstock (bar the name on the TRC). Frets are the skinny sixties ones.

It has two tone and two volume knobs, plus the smaller fifth blend knob, the later still relatively unusual in Rick copies (I've seen it now on some of the recent 325 copies though). There is a pick-up select switch, and a nicely cut, bi-level white pick-guard. The tuners are closed-back, old-fashioned Kluson-style tuners.

The previous owner modified the guitar with a fake scanned Rick TRC and real Rick "R" tailpiece, the latter apparently replacing a copy of the Rick trapeze - not the usual ugly spaghetti wire trapeze that most other 330 and 325 copies have. I wanted the original TRC back - and soaked off the fake TRC to get at it. There it is, "Vester tradition", written in the Rick font. I'm proud that it is a copy!

For anyone who wants to avoid be done by a fake Vester, there are some other minor differences compared to the real thing. There is only one truss rod. There is a gap between the bridge and bridge pick-up on the Vester. The top-to-side edges of the body seem slightly less rounded than they are on the original. The beaver tailpiece sections are straight lines, rather than gentle curves. The fret board is not heavily lacquered. So a good copy, but not an exact copy.

I bought this to give me the famed jingle-jangle sound.

The only amp I've put this through is a poxy little Amp-U-Plug-N-Play. Let the brevity of the sound discussion reflect this!

I can get the famed Rick sixties jingle-jangle out of this wee number at about 3/4 volume on the guitar. The fifth blend pot works nicely, within the limits of the amplification.

I don't have the adapter to try the stereo sound option, which no-one seems to use that much actually.

It is hard to say more without decent amplification, and my lowish score reflects my uncertainty, especially in terms of a higher gain slightly over-driven sound.

The action is medium-low. Intonation is also spot-on. The guitar is well put together and finished, subjectively to about 90% of the quality of the original.

Downsides? Unfortunately, a couple of minor ones! One of the Klusons has a bit of slack in it and may eventually need replacing. Both jack-inputs were loose and needed seeing to. There was some buzzing which cleaned up after a couple of bolts were tightened in the bridge. There were also a couple of loose screws in the TRC and the scratch plate. Bits of match stick stuffed down the screw holes soon tightened things up. Nothing major, but points off.

I would imagine it will be ok, since it appears of good build-quality, but the proof is in the next 20 years.

Zip, nada, rien, and nichts. The company does not exist any more. I have, however, found the Trickenbacker web-site very useful!

The Vester 360, in near new condition, cost less than half the US price of a near new second-hand original Rick 360, with case. That price included an original tailpiece (I saw one go recently going for $320 USD on eBay with hours to run, more than half the price I piad for this quitar!) and a hard case. The price was about a quarter to a third of a new Rick 360 in Europe, perhaps a better comparison, as I am currently located there, and shipping prices of Rick guitars from the US to Europe are horrendous, when a US seller is prepared to ship at all (official Rick dealers absolutely won't). This seems to be part of Rickenbacker's pro-US price discrimination policy in action, a policy which automatically removes many guilty feelings of non-US guitarists about buying Rick copies!

As Rick copies go, quality-wise I feel that the Vester is up there with the excellent Japanese Grecos made during the 1980s and 1990s. I got about 90% of the original guitar, at well less than half the price of an original. That's a good deal on a good copy. In addition, I prefer the toasters look and sound to the hi-gains, and the Klusons to the Schallers of the more modern Rick 360s, and I got these features automatically with the copy. Sound-wise, it also does the deal.

Good luck in finding one though!