Not sure I follow correctly....I thought RIC *didn't* want TRC's being sold on eBay, etc, to avoid forgeries....?

No, no, GENUINE plates are always legally sold in any venue. eBay provides a great free market for GENUINE plates. Typically the plates are worth more than the copy guitars they were attached to in the past and now they're coming off and the majority being sold as replacements for GENUINE instruments.

The fake plates are another matter and it's amazing to me that a few people have offered them, when you consider the considerable penalty when caught.

Actually there is one for sale on Ebay right now, but at 200 bucks asking price I rather buy the cheapest Rick on Ebay part it out and keep the TRC that came with it.

Gotcha Mr. Hall. Although doesn't the fact that the genuine plates are solid legally raise the spectre of people affixing them to fake Rick-lookalike guitars and passing them off as real? Sort of a "inverse" forgery of using a fake TRC.

Besides doing the TRC exchange with Rickenbacker, if the TRC's are not available legally to everyone in some manner, then prospective buyers might have to meet T. Roddy Coverman in a back alley to possibly get a genuine RIC TRC.

I agree, it's the lesser of two evils...I guess there's no way to completely prevent people producing ripoffs of some variety or other

Seems most reasonable to me that Mr. Hall's current policy on the TRC makes the most ehtical, prudent and practical sense possible.

And I truly believe that all Ric owners of the genuine article are the prime beneficiares of this policy.

The all has a big impact on re-sale value, etc., etc.

There's no legal basis for stopping the sale of genuine components, not that I'd want to anyway. But there's certainly a strong legal basis for stopping the sale of mis-branded instruments.

Theoretically the nameplate could be licensed by the company and never sold, just as the film companies did for movie posters and less similarly, the music you buy on CD's. But I don't see that too many problems have been solved by doing so.

If we were starting with a clean sheet of paper, I'd design a plate that's much more difficult and expensive to produce.

So having said that, anyone got a white 4001 TRC they want to swap for a nice 4003 one :-)

$200 for a TRC on eBay ? That's just about 50% of what I paid for my first 4001 brand new.

Mr. Hall, just as a matter of interest, what does happen to all the 4001 TRC's like mine that get returned for replacement and exchange ?

I sell them on eBay?

Actually, they go into a big box and other than a couple used for very special restorations, they haven't been touched. Too bad they're not recyclable.

Yeah, and when they sold for that much I could fill up my car's tank for 5 bucks too.