So I had to dig deeper on this one, after all it has been at least 2 and a half years since I held a Rick for obvious reasons.
The average weight of Ricks from the 80s and 90s were about 8.75 to 9.25lbs from the ones I checked out online.
There were a few that broke the 10lbs barrier BUT they were all painted solid colours. This could be just a coincidence as I only sampled about 20+ basses.
Finally any model around the 2020 mark was about 9lbs.
So maybe it is just the look of the bass that made me believe they are much heavier.
Either way I stand by my initial impression that John’s Rick has some nice wood work that I can’t say I’ve seen in any of the others. It’s especially prevalent in the pic showing the back of the neck.