So, I was in at Allans/Billy Hydes (think Sam Ash for our America friends) Sydney at Lunchtime, and at the front of the shop where 6 new ricks, 4 x 300 Series and 2 x 4000 Basses

A sign announced "Sydney's only new Rickenbacker Store"

Got speaking to one of the guys, they have been selling them since December 18th and have sold two to date. The guy wasn't that knowledgable on the brand ("i have been pushing Fender and Gibson so long") but seemed really keen to talk about them (I of course pulled out my iPhone with pictures of my 360/6 and 660/12TP)

Apparently the head of Allans has been pushing Rick to sell them for a long time and they are on trial to see how they go. To their credit they had them very prominently displayed at the front of the store , and god did they look beautiful against a sea of production line fenders and gibsons, the jetglo and fireglo just "glowed"

Anyway, they are also selling them in their Melbourne store for anyone interested

Excellent news, although I gather from a recent post of JH's that this must still be via the SEA distributor in Japan, as no Australian distributor would be appointed without a visit to Australia and personal meetings with potential distributors. I've not seen or heard anything about Ricks being available from my "local" Billy Hydes/Allans store at Blackburn, but I've just checked their web-site, and yes, there are FireGlo and JetGlo 4003s listed, along with a few guitar models. Regardless of the background circumstances, wonderful to see brand new Ricks available in Australia for the first time in I don't know how long!

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"Well, I'll be... the critter went and done it."

congrats ...... you've finally reached the rest of civilization

Not until Tom Petty tours here..........

Count yourself as lucky then!

Ouch. So cruel

You guys had AC/DC back when they were good. That alone makes you guys lucky.

That is true. When they toured Australia last year some of the youngsters in the office asked me if I wanted to go. I said "I saw them with Bon Scott twice, and the original back in black tour. What would possibly interest me in seeing them now?"

It is the first time my age has ever been respected!

Could be short lived. Papers today are reporting billy hides / allans about to go broke. Another case of highly geared private equity owned retail not seeing changes in business models

The list of retail companies going into liquidation is long and getting longer here in Australia, this includes long established proven companies, within the clothing sector, shops are closing, fashion icons are closing shops and manufacturing plants! On the music front, even I who never really considered owning more guitars, took advantage of the high AUD against the Greenback, I priced the guitars here in Australia from some of the sellers you mention, but alas it saved me a considerable amount of money to import from the USA.............. This is how I got my 2 Ric's
When the Aus dollar eclipsed the Greenback I saw it as a once in a life time opportunity, even now it is OK to import, but if you have contacts it can work out a lot cheaper than buying here in Australia! But it still will be a shame for the companies mention to go into liquidation, it is indicative of our changing economy

. The USA will recover but I fear what will happen in some other countries I don't think they will recover so fast.

I have a friend in Greece, oh he does not tell of any good news, and he is very worried about his whole families situation in Greece. We are still Lucky to have what we do in Australia, this includes the USA. I think we might see an influx of economic refugees fleeing parts of Europe, they don't want to leave their mother country but they may have no alternative.