Custom, Handmade

B.C. Rich is a manufacturer of guitars and bass guitars, known for their unusual and somewhat threatening body shapes, popular among exponents of extreme metal. more...

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History

The B.C. Rich guitar company was started in 1974 by the late Bernardo Chavez Rico (or "Bernie, Sr.") as a repair shop primarily for Spanish and Classical-style guitars. Later Bernie expanded into solid-body electrics after repairing the snapped neck of Bo Diddley's legendary Gretsch. Rico adopted the professional name B.C. Rich and began making Les Paul-inspired guitars. Later models such as the Bich, Eagle, Seagull, Warlock, Mockingbird, Ironbird and others would express the personalities of Rico, staff designers, and independent contractors. Rico loved exotic cars and motorcycles, designer clothes and custom paint schemes--all of which would manifest themselves from time-to-time in certain guitars.

As popularity and demand grew, Rico wanted to start mass producing guitars for a much lower price to a much wider audience. B.C. Rico was the name originally given to these imported B.C. Rich guitars that Rico had manufactured in Japan and sold in the US. This name was given to make a distinction between the US made and imported guitars, but was dropped due to a lawsuit filed by the Rico reed company. Only several hundred of these are believed to have made it into the US. These Japanese (and later Korean) made guitars were subsequently known as the NJ series, which originally stood for Nagoya Japan, the place where they were manufactured. NJ still serves to distinguish an imported line of B.C. Rich guitars and basses, along with the even cheaper Platinum and Bronze series. There was also a very inexpensive Rave series in the eighties, as well as a higher-quality L.A. Series. The B.C. Rico and early NJ guitars and basses were of neck through body construction, and were very well made instruments. The present imported guitars are mostly bolt-on neck construction (except for the current NJ Classic and N.T. series) and made to appeal to a demographic of mostly younger, more inexperienced players who want an inexpensive guitar with a different look than the standard fare.

Class Axe Era

B.C. Rich has a long history of rumors and reports that they have gone out of business completely or filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection multiple times since their primary inception in the late 70's and early 80's, as well as reports of a constantly changing executive management. One of the more well known instances of this occurred in the late '80s, when Bernie Rico decided to step away from guitar manufacturing and licensed production out to a New Jersey based manufacturer known as Class Axe.

Class Axe produced guitars at a fraction of the price of other manufacturers. However, the quality of the guitars was extremely poor, as they used glued and layered plywood along with other generic lumber yard woods for the bodies of the guitars to save money. Among the list of major complaints, aside from the obvious use of cheaper woods, was general poor workmanship including bad sanding, shaping, paint jobs, hardware, and fret wire installation.

Read more at Wikipedia.org