Color Collection

Rickenbacker Blue Boy

Blue Boy was Rickenbacker's Color of the Year for 2004 — the fifth entry in the 2000–2006 COY program, and arguably the one that most decisively shifted collector behavior toward ordering unusual models in the special finish. If Montezuma Brown got people thinking about future collectibility, Blue Boy shifted that into overdrive. The name and color have a specific origin. In early 1961, the Rickenbacker factory made three custom instruments for Jim Reeves's band — the Blue Boys — including a powder blue 360F for the lead guitarist. The instruments associated with that order became the color's namesake. Whether those original instruments came from the factory in blue or were refinished in Nashville afterward remains a genuine open question — but Rickenbacker treated the name as historical when they revived it, first for Japan and UK special runs in 2001–2002, then as the 2004 COY. The color itself is a very pale powder blue — so light it reads almost white in certain photographs, shifting toward a soft greenish blue in others depending on light and clearcoat age. One condition caveat worth knowing: some examples have yellowed unevenly over time, with the blue occasionally bleeding into the binding. Clean, stable examples are the ones worth pursuing.