Here's the story in more detail. I copied/saved it from his website 22 years ago, it was since removed.
The Rickenbacker was the only bass I used on Machine Head, strung with Rotosound strings, I seem to remember. The bass has a bit of a history; I bought it in New York and in an effort to save customs duty, about £25 or so, I had a receipt saying it cost less than it did, which wasn't a lot anyway, $400 or thereabouts. Ian Hansford, our roadie at the time, brought the guitar back through British customs a day ahead of me for some reason I stayed an extra 24 hours in NY. Anyway, they smelled a rat, arrested and charged Ian and impounded the bass.
When Ian called and told me what had happened, I was armed with what seemed like a plausible story when I came through the next day. "Ah, Mr. Glover, would you open all your bags please?" Putting on my best innocent face I waited while they went through everything, even the pages of my address book. At last I asked if I could help and the officer showed me the false receipt, asking if I recognized it. I replied that it certainly looked like a receipt for a bass, but added that it couldn't be mine because the amount was wrong (for this was my story, that the store had given me a false receipt without my, or Ian's, knowledge). I was ushered into a private room where they grilled me for about two hours. I stuck to the story but my halo was beginning to tarnish as successively tougher people came into the room to work on me. I finally cracked when they bluffed about telephone records (when asked, I had told them that Ian Hansford hadn't called me in New York to warn me that the customs had my guitar which of course he had!).
The end came when a senior office came into the room, sat on the desk looking down at me and said, "OK, Glover, what's this ********?" When I admitted at last that yes, I was trying to save $25 (even after Fireball I didn't have much money all that I earned went to pay back earlier advances) and owned up saying, "it's a fair cop guv, Ill go quietly," and things like that. Strangely enough, after that they were as nice as pie as they read me my rights and formally charged me with evading customs and excise duties.
The real catch was that they had the guitar and explained that I wouldn't be able to get it back until after the court case, if there was one. I told them I couldn't wait that long, I was due to go to Switzerland in less than two weeks to make a record and I needed the guitar. The only option, they said, was to plead guilty, pay the fines for both Ian Hansford and myself, and also pay an enormous sum to get the guitar back. In all, I paid more than double the price for that guitar. It is only fitting then, that soon afterwards I went to Montreux with DP and recorded our biggest selling album ever with that guitar.
RG
