do 4003 rickenbacker basses now have cream binding?

I can’t give you a definitive answer, but here’s some input that may help:

My 4003 MBL was made the 26th week of 2020. Notice in the picture that the binding is noticeably less white than the pickguard. Is it cream? Is it just a different shade of white? You be the judge.

 

Really, I hadn’t thought to look at the binding color until I saw your post. It’s such a subtle difference that I may have never noticed.

 

I gotta’ say though, I’m loving the v2 bridge and unfinished fretboard on mine. Those are two changes that make me love this one over older Rics I’ve owned!

 

I’m holding out until Rickenbacker offers the 4003 with cream filling.

 

Unless a player has a fretting hand technique that includes mashing the strings down unnecessarily hard, the strings shouldn’t really touch the inlays. Case in point: Do you see Jazz Basses with damaged block inlays?

 

I’m holding out until Rickenbacker offers the 4005 with cream filling.

 

I bet it was my thread.

cream is maybe a strong word… but it is somewhere between white and cream on my early winter 2021 jetglo. And good photos from the likes of some big online dealers were the same. Maybe it was a temp thing to use up supplies (same binding on my 2020 limited run 4003 with a toaster, cb binding, and flamed maple body with amber monty brown.)

at first i was upset because i wanted that black white look… even if i knew the binding would eventually yellow. But quickly it was a non thing. I like the modern changes.

i will be curious if they again swapped back to “white” binding. But i warn this: i can make it look white or cream based on how i photograph it. An the op photos are not high enough quality in my mind to judge.

 

I was initially turned off by the “unfinished” fretboard… cause rics have finished fretboards. That lasted 24 hours. Now i prefer the look. I wish all my rics were unfinished.

 

Maybe they're pre-ageing the binding...

 

IMHO the cream/off white binding looks way better than the super white pickguard. It's been a long time, but pretty sure I had a parchment pick guard on my 4001 before the mods. Now it's black .

 

Real “cream” binding is that hideous “ Caucasian Baby Doll Flesh” color you see on some Gibsons. Almost a pink color. I’d call that Ric binding “ivory”, but if you order “cream” binding you might get either one, the term being flexible by vendor. It may not be the binding at all, but the clearcoat. I don’t know if it’s true, but supposedly they finally dropped that UV clearcoat that’s been peeling off for 10+ years. If the new clearcoat has any ambering effect, that might be what we are seeing. The old 60’s and 70’s clearcoat always yellowed like that over time, sometimes the binding looks bright yellow. I like it, the stark white binding looks good on a Jetglo, maybe not as good on transparent finishes like Fireglo. Or the Walnut basses. The heavy laquer on the board looked nice… for a while. It always eventually started separating away from the frets through inevitable difference in expansion/contraction. They couldn’t crown the frets because the finish “ramped” up the sides, so they filed the fret tops flat. Oddly, they carried that crappy flat fret filing onto the new unfinished boards because…. Ric. After decades of tiny, incremental changes, this counts as an avalanche. Now if they would just ditch that crappy double trussrod system in favor of a single modern DA rod……..

 

I had my shop contact ric for clarification also… what i got was “design features have changed”


But if it truly a supply issue… i have a limited run collector “covid bass.” Score!!!

Also, if many complain about the changes… ric will swap back