Hi Guys.
My name is Tony, I live in England UK and some years ago I bought a old Rickenbacker Lap Steel Guitar purely 'cos I liked the look of it. The guy in the shop didn't know too much about it but some time later he desperately tried to get me to sell it back to him which makes me think that he made a mistake letting me have it for the price I paid.
I've recently looked on the Rickenbacker web site and seen this model in the 1950's catalogs, so I would presume that it originates from around that era. It's a DW (doubleneck)model. I've tried putting the serial number into the Rickenback serial decoder but it comes up with "invalid" The number is DW34174 Does anyone know a way that I might be able to gain the month and year (or just the year) of manufacture. The only other number that I can find on it is a patent number 2089171. Also would anybody be able to give me an approxamate value in case I wanted to sell it? Not that I want to at the moment. I've had it for 15 years and I still can't play the *#*#*# thing.
Cheers in advance.
Tony.

http://www.horseshoemagnets.com/_sgg/m1_1.htm

http://www.hsga.org/index.htm

These folks might be of help.

Thanks for info John.
Will take a look.