I take no moral stance on buying a Ric knockoff, since Ric themselves are IP pirates, but a lot of people have gone down this rabbit hole without much to show for it. I have only played one Chickenbacker, and it was a POS with entirely un-dressed and unleveled frets made of some kind kind of alloy that was turning green. The fit and finish were ok, kind of a "three foot distance bass", any closer and you started seeing the flaws. Thats true of a lot of cheap Indonesian basses though. The tuners were cheap but serviceable, the bridge you see on all these basses is a weird design, but it works ok. It sounded nothing like a Ric, and was wired like a Les Paul. There are a number of different factories cranking these out, so quality can vary wildly. Some people have reported much better experience with them, so my sample of one may have been the bottom of the range. Some Aliexpress sellers will do custom one-offs or "husks" with no hardware, and most notably, lefties. Your chances of finding a genuine lefty Ric for anything you can afford are remote at best. I've literally never seen one in person, anywhere, ever. The "Lawsuit" Japanese basses are hard to find, since Ric has been pretty effective at policing them off Ebay and Reverb, but some of them were "an undetermined degree of less than terrible" ( no "praising counterfeits allowed on TB, which apparently only applies to Ric clones) Using all upgraded parts will get you in the ballpark, but any OEM Ric parts are not cheap, so your big savings up front can evaporate pretty quick. Retrovibe UK makes some fairly convincing and well reviewed pickups and other parts for a lot less. If you can find an Aliexpress seller you trust (a feat in itself), you might do ok, but its a crapshoot. Its a short step from vendors already engaged in blatant IP theft to ripping you off, and its still a largely unregulated and unenforced Wild West of faceless middle men over there, so be careful if you try this. Theres a whole Youtube channel called China Guitar Sceptic devoted to this particular minefield if you want some background. The Top Guitars is considered one of the more reliable vendors, but who knows for sure, ive never bought anything through them. As others have said, in the end you'll still have what amounts to a kit bass with no resale value, so factor that into your decision.
