Buying a Mosrite vintage electric guitar : eBay Guides

musical instruments 42Mosrite guitars, founded by Semie Moseley and Reverend Boatright, began as a garage operation and blossomed into a highly organized factory during his heyday with the Ventures instrumental rock and roll group. Since the Luthier passed away, licensing agreements have come and gone and clones abound everywhere. Sellers knowledgeable about Mosrites often give complete historical data while at the other end of the spectrum, try to capitalize on the originals claim to fame by offering cheap knockoffs barely resembling the original.  Things to look for: 1) an original will have on the headstock "Made in California" or "Made in California by Semie Moseley" while copies often have just the Mosrite logo indicating a copywright infringement.  2) Original guitars have slim tapered necks with low profile speed frets while knockoffs have larger fets that are more speed bumps than anything else.  3) Be wary of guitar sales from Indonesia and Packistan since these are probably not legit offers - do not give out any account info to these locations.  4) Ask the seller about condition if photos are lacking detail. Mint, excellent, good, fair all have different meanings to different sellers as are their expectations for selling price based upon these conditions. Ask for close-ups if in doubt.  5) Watch out for current manufacturers claiming their products resemble Mosrites since many resemble the outline of the body only and little if anything else. Mosrites were hand crafted instruments with over 20 coats of hand rubbed lacquer, rounded edges on the necks, vibramute or moseley vibratos, slim tapered necks with P-90 high performance single coil pickups. Some were equipped with humbuckers but these are rare.. There are vibrato clones out there that are crude at best with obvious low quality castings made. Moseley's were chrome plated and polished to a fine lustre - knockoffs ware unpolished rough castings.  6) Ask if the 2 sets of vibrato springs for light and heavy gauge strings  are included since the Ventures models had these.

Mosrite guitars are by far some of the best sounding easy playing guitars bar none. Some players like jumbo frets for their particular style of music while others like fatter necks to aide playability for artists with large hands. Mosrites (like Rickenbackers where Moseley was employed as an apprentice) are tough for people with large hansds and fingers. Roger McGuinn notes this in his videos. If you have large hands, these may be tough to bar chord.

Whatever your style, if you like to plat hard and fast, you simply cannot beat the original. Curently, the closest guitar of this caliber standard is the California carved top by Carvin of California who made the early Mosrite pickups. They are available on e-bay. Check them out. Players include Joe Walsh and Tim Schmidt of the Eagles.