Mosrite Danamite Wave

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Forgive me if I sometimes come across as some kind of all-knowing "Guitar Guru" but I never claimed to be an expert, and I certainly hadn't realised that the Mosrite company were still producing guitars. Dana Moseley has followed in her father Semie's footsteps as a luthier and is keeping the Mosrite name alive. The Mosrite Danamite "Wave" is an all-new limited edition 45th Anniversary model with what looks like three P90 pickups, but which actually are "Dana-Mo" custom special pickups, and an almost organic-looking Vibramute tremolo and roller bridge combination. The wave body design complete with the German carve so familiar on old Mosrites make it look both modern and vintage at the same time - it's unmistakably a Mosrite!

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Mosrite Celebrity Bass, ultra-short-scale

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As you can see in this photo with two Fender Starcasters behind it, this Mosrite Celebrity Bass from 1967 isn't just a short-scale bass, it's an ultra-short-scale. In fact with a scale length of 24.5" it's a shorter scale than many guitars. You can just imagine how it sounds!

Personally I'd quite like to have an instrument like this and set it up and string it for DGBE tuning, i.e. an octave lower than the TOP four strings of a guitar rather than the bottom four... or octave baritone ukulele tuning if you prefer. That's an instrument I can imagine having a real use for.

Anyway, concerning this particular instrument, the seller tells us that:

According to the orange Mosrite label inside the f-hole this is style #221, the Celebrity CE III Mark X, which was offered from 1966-69. It is 1 7/8" deep at the rims and has a single-bound top and back. The serial number, Z 0362, is written on the label and stamped at the end of the rosewood fingerboard between the 21st and 22nd frets. Other features include bound f-holes, metal zero-fret, Mosrite logo-embossed machines with metal tuner buttons, adjustable bridge with non-roller string saddles, raised white plastic pickguard, short trapeze tailpiece, bridge cover/hand rest, dual pickups, and white plastic control plate with mounted jack and selector switch.

If I was in a position to be buying guitars right now, I'd be so tempted to snap this one up. It has a Buy It Now price of $795, which is about £488 to people like me. Sometimes it's hard compiling a guitar blog with all this temptation on daily basis!

Thanks to Jeremiah Cornelius for bringing this bass to my attention.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

1965 Mosrite Melobar

guitarz.blogspot.com

This Mosrite Melobar is one of the most exciting instrument I've posted here.

I was aware that something such existed but (thanks one more time to David B. who regularly send us his Internet finds) I've made some research lately about it and I discovered a cool hybrid guitar, allowing a musician to play lap steel style while standing / moving / dancing - that makes it a great instrument for the kind garage blues I particularly like lately (that's also the kind of instrument that was played in Captain Beefheart's Magic Band).

The instrument was conceived by Melobar in the 60s and built by different brands - this one by Mosrite with its classic design that fits particularly well (there is also a Flying V version with accurate ergonomics but ill-looking in my humble opinion). It has a neck with 70° angle to the body, that is then almost horizontal when the body hangs from the strap in a standard guitar position (the strap is connected to the headstock to allow uncompensated pressure on the neck). You play it like a regular lapsteel, though probably with more energy!

This is the 9-string version of the Melobar - they existed also in 6 and up to 10. For some obscure and un-understandable reasons, the Melobar was short-lived and never reissued (I have a doubt though, there's been a Melobar.com website that is now closed, so I can't tell if it was a vintage fan site or a new company one - like Jolana...). So who will resuscitate this little marvel?

bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Glen Campbell's electric resonator guitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Tone Deaf Radio has written to me asking what guitar Glen Campbell is playing in the above clip?

This red electric resonator guitar is also pictured on the front cover of his album "Hey, Little One".

Anyway, my suspicion was that it might be a Mosrite - I don't know why I thought that - but it's been vindicated by this page here where we see a very similar guitar in black for sale (pictured right). I did wonder if it was it was a genuine collaboration between the Dobro and Mosrite companies, or if the name Dobro is being used to describe the type of guitar, i.e. a resonator. Dobro is one of those brand names, like Biro or Hoover, that has passed into the language and is applied to similar items not of that brand. However, a look at the full-size photo clearly shows both names on the headstock.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

60s Mosrite Joe Maphis double-neck

Many reactions on the previous post about the Gretsch Baritone double-neck, including a comparison with the great Mosrite Joe Maphis that has indeed a much cooler look and more important has non-parallel necks, that is more organic and allows a smaller body... I just regret that it only exists as a 12/6 and not baritone/6. Also it's long time discontinued and therefore unaffordable.

About why do people use double-neck guitars, if it's just to have a rhythmic neck / solo neck for a song, I'm far from convinced - would be more interesting to develop solos with 12-string, and unless you're Jimi Hendrix ou David Gilmour, solos are so often just fillings that they don't require something so sophisticated as a double-neck guitar... Jazz à la McLaughlin feels more relevant. And I know what to do with one too (but I'm not McLaughlin, for sure).

More double-necks later!

Bertram

T.F. Elliott White Dove Guitar - The Mosrite That Never Was

This T.F. Elliot White Dove guitar, handcrafted in the USA circa 2000, is somewhat reminiscent of the now legendary Mosrite brand of guitars. Apparently Mr Ed Elliot worked with Semie Moseley in the 70s and 80s and now owns the original Mosrite luthiers shop equipment, and this Dove guitar - number 7 of only 7 - has been built in the style of Mosrite in homage to the originals. Check the headstock shape, the zero fret, the slanted front pickup and diagonally-ended fretboard...

Mosrite Doubleneck on eBay

Now here's something you DON'T see very often on eBay. It's a rare - very possible one-off - Mosrite doubleneck 12-string guitar/mandolin circa 1970. It looks to be in very nice condition too. The starting bid is at $2,000 - I'll be interested to see what this fetches.

Could this be the Rarest of all Mosrites?

There's a listing on eBay right now for a 1976 Mosrite Brass Rail which the seller claims is "the rarest of all Mosrites" and which has a hefty starting price to justify this at $2,999.

Aesthetically it's a very conservative looking guitar for a Mosrite. It's puts me in mind of the shape now used by the Washburn Idol series. It seems that Semie Moseley developed these guitars for the Japanese market. Here are his comments about the guitar:

"I was convinced I had to change my design, and I built this guitar called the Brass Rail. If I'd stuck with my original design and not spent so much money trying to come up with a new one, I could have made it. See, I put a 1/4" brass right into the neck 3/4" deep and I drove the frets right into it. Sustain like you never heard! I did necks both ways [bolt-on and set]. I mean, it was the ultimate in sustain. You could tune all the strings to zero and the first string would stay to pitch. So, I took a couple of these and let [a salesman] show them, and that's now I got into a deal in Japan."

The example shown here is one of the set necks - the neck continues down inside the guitar underneath the pickups and right up to the bridge.

Apparently there were only about 100 of these built (as you can see in the photo, this is #74) but does that make this "the rarest of all Mosrites"? Well, for a production model, this is very likely true, but there were numerous custom one-off Mosrites including double- and triple-necks and these surely must be considered rarer. I'm also reminded of the trio of surfboard-inspired guitars that Semie built for Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Strawberry Alarm Clock's surfboard-inspired Mosrites

eBay: 1967 Mosrite Vintage Strawberry Alarm Clock Guitars
(item 120026471951 end time Sep-14-06 12:30:00 PDT)

Blimey! The now legendary trio of unique Mosrite guitars as used by Strawberry Alarm Clock are up for sale on eBay! One of my very first posts on this blog was about these very guitars. (Thanks to Music Thing for the heads up.)

The Story of Mosrite Guitars: now in three parts over at Modern Guitars Magazine.

Kurt Cobain's guitar goes up for auction: the only known example of a Mark V style Mosrite Gospel model, allegedly.