My mother assembled John Lennon’s, 1964 325 C-64 “Miami” Rickenbacker Guitar.
My mother... Dorothy J. Tandle  "Dotty" was working at (RIC) Electro Strings Rickenbacker Guitars back in February 1964 in Santa Ana California. There was only 10 employees at the time and two woman. Mom was the first woman factory worker hired at Rickenbacker.
Francis C. Hall, CEO of Ric had the idea to meet with the Beatles when they came to do the Ed Sullivan Show and give them some new guitars. Mr. Hall gave Harrison a new twelve string guitar when he met them. (assembled by Dotty)
When Francis C. Hall got back from N.Y., after talking to John, Paul and Ringo he had a new guitar made for John.
F.C. Hall presented Lennon with a new 325 to replace his road weary 1958 one during the group's first trip to New York City. Rush shipped to the Hotel Deauville in Miami where it was used for the second performance in "Ed Sullivan Show" on February 16th.
Nicknamed at the factory… “Miami Special”
John used the new guitar on The Beatles second Sullivan appearance and on the group's subsequent tours and albums.

The phone rang at our house at 6:10AM with the GM of Ric Ward Deaton asking if my mom could come in ASAP to work on a special rush order guitar
My mother was asked to follow Lennon’s Custom guitar from start to finish.
This was the Black & White semi-hollow bodied  “Miami” model (serial number db122, d=1964, b=Feb.).
After the wood-shop cut out the body, she sanded the body, then worked on the neck & fret board, then she assembled the guitar after the finish was applied.

17:00 . The “you can’t do that” solo always sounded cool to me

According to Chris Wharton, John's guitar was painted by Charlie Bantam who used to paint cars. He painted it with black Tecaloid enamel which was the make of coach paint used on the vehicles. It certainly had several coats of paint and it took several days to complete. It was done in Birkenhead not London, sometime in September 1962.😊

I've played both the original 1958 and the 1964, both reissues, and the 1958 certainly had a much chunkier 1950s style neck profile. And George bought his 450 in the USA while on a trip to visit his sister, PRE 2/7/64.

Well done and very comprehensive, but I'm surprised that no one mentions the actual designer of the Ric 325 (and the entire 300 series), the German luthier Roger Rossmeisl. He also worked (briefly) for Gibson, and then worked for Fender, where he designed their Thinline Tele, among others, before returning to Germany in the 70s.He continues to remain largely unknown for a luthier who designed several iconic guitars of the 50s and 60s.

Lennon had his first Ric sprayed black at a Garage in Birkenhead.

John Fogerty from CCR is an example that it is possible play lead on a 325

Dude, I love your videos. This is awesome, man!!! Please keep 'em coming! I consider myself a diehard Beatles fan and I STILL learned a lot here! Amazing work-- can't stress it enough!

Bravo, Nick. Your research is incomparable. This vlog has been around for two years, so you can see it's taken me a while to find you. Had to put my rigs down for over two years because of vicious arthritis pain in left thumb and hand. New PT exercises, new breakthroughs in arthritis topical applications and steroid injections have given me hope. Starting back with a Squier Mini Strat which has a 21" scale length and flat 12" fret (I think) radius.  John's 20" Rickenbacker gives me confidence that maybe I will be able to return to my original 25.5" Strat one day. This knowledge alone is comforting. Thanks for an excellent primer on the Rickenbacker.

My friend is a diehard Beatles fan, had a tribute band, and now has the American made John Lennon Casino. He would love your videos, so I must tell him.

Nice breakdown of a legendary guitar and it's even more legendary player...

The level of detail here is FRIGHTENING. And amazing. Great job!

Very nicely done. I was fortunate enough to have had both Rickenbackers in my youth (I'm 70 now and unfortunately I'm dying of cancer) and I can tell you the 325C58 is far superior.  I also was lucky enough to have met Ron Demarino who worked on John's original Rick and he had John's original gold Pickard (cracked and messed up) and let me hold it in my hands. Here I am in my youth playing and singing 'Please Please Me' (only John's part) on my Ed Sullivan Rick 325C58. I bought it new from Elderly Music for $2,600. It was already Jet-Glo. I replaced the Vibrato with the Bigsby B5 and Bigsby Sorkin 'bowtie' bridge. Switched the beige toggle switch to black,  and ordered 4 original Burns knobs from Burns of London.  The problem was the Burns knobs wouldn't fit on the Rick potentiometers because the knobs were made in England which meant they were METRIC. So For $20 I had my friend drill the knobs a bit wider to fit. He had to do it very very carefully as those Burns knobs are very fragile and you could put a hole right through it.  Anyway here is my finished Ed Sullivan Rickenbacker 325C58 in action in 2011.
https://youtu.be/S0pOq4tclSwn

Great Video.  You totally got my attention with that shot of the small dog in your plush guitar case. Funny how some dogs instinctively know where the plushest places to lay down are.

I enjoyed this video. The visual comparison sections (particularly the scale section) are highly illuminating. Kudos!

Very well done. Is it just me, or did John seem to be slightly more careful with his '63 325 than with his '58 325? When you see him playing live with his original Ric he plays it with a studied nonchalance that almost seems like he doesn't care if he breaks it or not. Later, with his new 325, he seems to treat it with more respect. I don't know. But I do know that to attempt to replicate his playing on early Beatle songs it helps to be almost rough with the guitar. You gotta play like you just don't care.

Great video and super informative! I thought I was the only one crazy enough to buy a 325 Miami haha! Glad to see someone else rockin one. I was super thrown off by the scale at first, but now I love it.

Dog knows a good bed when they see one.

I’ve wondered about this for years and gave up on any in depth information. I just now unintentionally stumbled upon this. Thanks so much for this holy grail!

Wow, you did a LOT of work on this. Great job! Thank you for posting it.