Sorry taking so long, been very very busy...so many Ricks, so little time.
It was the summer of 76 Wings Tour. Paul's HS pickup was dead before he got to L.A. and arrangements were made to bring the Bass to the Rickenbacker office on South Stevens street in Santa Ana for repairs. The Bass was brought from L.A. to Santa Ana in a Limo, the Limo driver brought the Bass to the main office and presented it to F.C. Hall who then had Charles Malyszka A.K.A. Chas Maly who was in charge of customer service and artist relations check the Bass to diagnose the problems. F.C. brought the Bass over to the factory on South Kilson drive about 2 miles from the main office to have the pickup repaired. When it arrived it was taken apart and found that the magnets were dead and could not be charged back to strength to make them work. A new pickup was installed and the broken pickguard was replaced. The instrument was also cleaned up and 1 coat of sealer was applied to the bare wood. While it was in the shop someone stole the zero fret top nut, drilled a hole in it and placed it on their key chain as a momento
not a nice thing to do IMO but it happened. Dick Burke (woodshop mgr.) had me cut a new top nut for the Bass. At this time none of us in the woodshop knew it was Paul's Bass until lunch time when Burke mentioned it belonged to one of the Beatles
When the Bass was completed it went back to the main office where F.C. had Chas and Harold Hayes check it to make sure everything was proper and working. Here's the fun part: Chas and Harold left the Bass on the bench in the sound room and put a bunch of metal parts in the case so when they gave F.C. the case Chas almost dropped it causing some serious rattling sounds and F.C. thought it was broken, he didn't appreciate the joke either, not a humorous man to say the least.
The Bass was given to the Limo driver who drove straight to the L.A. Forum in time for the sound check and Paul played the Bass that night.
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