B.C. Rich NJ series RJ-V

There was an auction that included a lot of Guitars, Banjos and Mandolins, (but no Ukes), and there were quite a few that I would have liked to invite. One of the first up was the black B.C.Rich Vee. Now I kind of wanted a solid body Vee, ideally a Gibson but that was never going to happen so I was willing to look at direct copies, like the Epiphone and "in the style of" copies like the Jackson or as in this case the B.C.Rich, (I know I already have a number of B.C.Riches and I don't have a Jackson but I do prefer the symmetrical look rather than the offset look of a Jackson). I was not willing to send a big invite to a Vee though but I was up for a small punt, especially with this one as it was a bit of an oddity, (aren't all B.C.Riches a bit of an oddity?) This one is technically headless; except it still has a headstock?? Now most of B.C.Riches Vees have a normal headstock at the end of the neck with machine heads on and sometimes locking nuts, but for a short while, for some reason they put out some Vees featuring a bridge with tuners on and a standard sort of headless nut? However they left the headstock on, but its not doing anything, apart from being a billboard for the logo. Maybe there was a shortage of ordinary bridges? Maybe they had a load of headless guitar hardware sitting about and they wanted to use it up? Whatever the reason it added to my interest as I wanted to try out the headless guitar hardware as well as wanting a Vee, so I put out the invitation.

The BC Rich is even more perplexing in reality. With all of the headless tuning paraphernalia, leaving that big ol' headstock looks even more incongruous. I know that most of these Vee's have a normal set of tuners on the headstock, so I can understand production wise, but I don't think all empty as it is, it looks that good and am tempted to remove it, (not sure about the truss rod though??) Looks aside it is a good quality bit of kit, the whammy bar works perfectly, even if it doesn't have the grandeur of a Bigsby. The tuners all work, if a little fiddly and it certainly has a certain venom about it.

Further research has shown me that the funny bridge here is a Floyd Rose SpeedLoader, introduced in 2003 and only ever used on Floyd Rose Guitars and some B.C.Rich Guitars at the time; and its time wasn't long! This was not a headless bridge it was an all new concept that was suppose to make string changes really quick and easy, but it required special strings that needed to be made exactly, (and I mean to within 0.0002 of an inch), the right length. Commercial production of the strings failed and so the whole system was withdrawn and they gave up trying to make new strings in 2007. this means that the strings on this guitar are at least 15 years old and the only way to put new strings on is to replace the bridge and the nut, and then drill holes and add standard tuners on the headstock. Some people have done this but I'm not going to. I don't think the value of the Guitar is worth it and as I was never going to play it much, I like the idea of having a Guitar with a rare and odd bridge setup so the Pony Guitar Sanctuary will be keeping a SpeedLoader Guitar for prosperity, (though if I ever do come across an unused set of SpeedLoader strings I will replace them).