BC Rico was a name used by Bernardo Rico, founder and owner of BC Rich guitars between 1978 and 1982 on a line of Japanese-built models.
Bernardo Rico, like many other US builders at the time, was facing encroaching competition from Japanese and Korean imports and chose go head-to-head with that competition.
Built in Nagoya, Japan, these were very high quality renditions of Rico’s US designs.
Approximately 200 were built until the BC Rico brand name had to be dropped due to a legal challenge from the Rico Reeds company.
Shortly after, the branding changed to BC Rich NJ Series, with NJ representing ‘Nagoya Japan’ – even after production moved out of Japan.
