John Lennon's Rickenbacker 325

The Beatles are undoubtedly the most recognized and acclaimed group of musicians to 

ever play guitar, drums and bass. For John Lennon, the guitar he chose to help 

launch the British Invasion was a 1958 Rickenbacker 325

John Lennon in Hamburg with his Rickenbacker 325

In 1960, The Beatles departed their home country and set off for Hamburg, Germany. They had spent the last months toiling in the clubs and coffeehouses around Liverpool, and decided to try and strike it out in a new place to see about changing their fortunes. The eventually signed with German promoter Bruno Koschmider and were signed to be the house band for his Indra Club. The gig wasn't exactly all it was cracked up to be, and upon arriving they spent their first night in Hamburg sleeping in leather chairs in the booths of the club.

John himself would later describe the group's living conditions in Hamburg, "We were put in this pigsty. We were living in a toilet, like right next to the ladies' toilet. We'd go to bed late and be woken up next day by the sound of the cinema show and old German fraus [women] pissing next door." The group was paid £2.50 a night, and were made to play each night out of the week from 8:30 pm until 2:00 am with only three half an hour breaks in between sets. The situation was crummy for all those involved, however one thing it did do for the group was expose them to an audience on a nightly basis, and provide them the time and room to enhance their own individual and collective abilities.

Handbill for The Beatles after they moved from the Indra Club to the Kaiserkeller

When John first arrived in Hamburg he brought with him a Hofner Senator guitar, but after some time, he decided he wanted a new instrument. The Beatle had previously seen Jean "Toots" Thielemans of George Shearing´s Quintet, playing a Rickenbacker 325 in 1959 and instantly fell in love with it. While walking down the Reeperbahn with George Harrison one day, John spotted a 325 sitting in the window of Steinways music store. It was a natural finished model and as George was to later recall, "I think we bought them on "a knocker...I don´t know if we ever paid them off", meaning they bought them for a one pound deposit and neglected to pay off the rest of the debt.

The guitar John purchased was a 1958 model, and at first came in a natural finish. It had a 4/5 scale solid top guitar, alder body and neck, 2" thick with 1/8" ply back, single gold lucite control plate, four rotary controls with Rogan knobs, three 'short pole' toaster style pickups, Kauffman vibrola, standard 3 position pickup selector switch, extended jackplate, open backed Grover Statite tuners, and Rickenbacker open top roller bridge.

Over the subsequent years, Lennon would make many modifications to the guitar, starting with the control knobs. He decided to remove the TV-style control knobs and replace them with Hofner types, he would later alternated between a set of Burns and Hofner knobs.

John's Rickenbacker 325 pictured at a trade show in 1958 (Bottom Left)

The second modification came when John returned to Liverpool when he decided to replace the stock Kauffman Vibrola tailpiece. The Kauffman proved to be unreliable and when John would lean on it, it would frequently cause the guitar to go out of tune. Thus, Lennon went to Hessy's music and bought a Bigbsy tailpiece with a bow-tie bridge from Jim Getty who installed it for him on the spot in the store. Unfortunately the Bigsby bridge was a bit too large for the smaller 325 body. The pick-guard on the Rickenbacker prevented it from fitting properly or perhaps it was improperly installed.

Additionally, at some point, the middle pickup was disconnected on the guitar as well. No one knows exactly why, and John himself never commented on the issue, but the most likely reason for this altered wiring might have been to achieve greater difference in tone between the different pickup-switch positions. In most photos of John playing the 325 John had the guitar set to the middle position, so it is plausible that he liked the setting and personally requested the change.

The last and most dramatic modification done to the instrument was the refinishing job Lennon had done to it. After ditching the leather jackets and opting for suits, ties, and cuban shoes, Lennon decided he wanted to change the look of his guitar as well. To do the refinish, John contacted Jim Burns, of Burn's Guitar to do the job. The exact date of when this took place is unknown, however the last time the guitar was photographed in the natural finish was at the Cavern Club in Liverpool around October, 1962. The first photograph of the guitar with it's new coat of black paint was taken in the Star Club in Hamburg in December of the same year, thus one can infer that somewhere during this time was when the task was completed.

Eventually, John would retire the 325 shortly after the band made their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. The guitar was put away in storage until 1972 when John commissioned Ron DeMarino, to restore the instrument to a working order. DeMarino would later describe that upon receiving John's Rickenbacker that it was in a very poor condition. The guitar was equipped with mixed types of strings, some missing, and strung in the wrong place. The gold control plate was cracked and the wiring harness was tampered with to the point that circuit information from Rickenbacker was required to return it to original specifications. 

DeMarino was able to successfully restore the 325 to its former glory. John had made an additional request upon handing the guitar over, he wanted to remove the black paint and restore it to its original natural finish. Unfortunately, it was mistakenly refinished in plain maple rather than the correct natural/honey finish. The Burns knobs were retained on the guitar however, the pick-guard had to be replaced, with John giving the original damaged one given to DeMarino as a gift. 

John's Rickenbacker 325 after it was Restored

 It is rumored that John would later choose to use his old trusted Rick on the Double Fantasy sessions in 1980. It is rather fitting that some of the last music John would ever record was played on his old trusted Rickenbacker 325, the guitar he played when he was introduced to the world.