rickenbacker nameplate white vs. gold

[kennyramjam]

I've seen various photographs of Rickenbacker 660/12 TP (Tom Petty),
and they are all beautiful guitars but sometimes it appears that the
gold pickguard is mated with a gold nameplate, and, sometimes it
appears that the gold pickguard is mated with a WHITE nameplate.
I know there were 1000 of these guitars made. Any ideas on why
some are one way and some are the other?

[cmatthes]

The TP models all came stock with the gold TRCs, just like the regular 660s as far as I know. I've seen some with swapped aftermarket parts, from both the TRCs and pickguards. Some people did that to preserve the "TP" sig (silkscreened) guards, others maybe because they liked the look of the white parts better.

[Targ]

I would lay odds that the gold signature pick guards are set aside for safe keeping as cmatthes said,
unless you are saying that they have a white truss rod cover name plate... That I can't answer.
I do know that you just can't get those from Ric... unless you send in the original with your first born.

[kennyramjam]

Thanks for the help. It would seem normal that the guitar would initially be made with
the pickguard color matching the TRC's. The picture I saw was obviously that of a
guitar where the TRC had been changed to white for unknown reasons. Kind of the
reverse of Lennon's old capri, where the pickguard was eventually changed to white
which mismatches the TRC. Looks OK, but not quite right.