Yeah, my ricks are extremely solid- don't know what those comments are really talking about. They're exceptional guitars, and far more versatile than they're usually given credit for. It might not be that expensive, and you may find you like it so much it becomes more than a secondary or tertiary guitar too. I'd follow SGNick's advice - look for a real one as cheap as you can find. It doesn't even have to use the word Rickenbacker or Rick in the item description. I had been offered a quite decent Shaftesbury 4001 copy (in fact, some of these - and the Ibanez-branded ones that came from the same factory - are actually reasonably close to the real thing, and might even fool someone inexperienced, with a changed nameplate.) and his response was very simple: all copies that infringe RIC's trademarks, which include the basic body shapes, will have action taken against them if offered for sale and RIC sees it, no matter how old and no matter if it's a private sale rather than a dealer. Hall what the situation regarding old copies was - ie those whose sale didn't benefit the original copy maker. I can't remember if that was a reply to a question I asked, but if not it was very similar.
