I have been interested in a mosrite guitar for a while. I know the standard is to go play a guitar and see if you like it. That is easy for brands like Fender that are everywhere but how do you test drive a more obscure guitar? I am not using obscure in a negative way... i just mean they are not commonly found in music or guitar stores. i seem to remember someone on the forum having a mosrite guitar... does anyone have any thoughts or opinions of them? just curious

+1 where can you get one? that's the harder question

There is a mosrite usa guitar company... isn't this the same company? I know ebay has a lot of the older ones that fetch quite a pretty penny but i thought this was the same company just making new guitars.

any model in particular? i'm guessing the one johnny ramone used?

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riley

i notice the company still exists but it has no connection with any music stores what's with that?

oh, i was looking at the '65 re-issue not the Ramone model. But i would really want to try one before i dropped that kind of coin.

Holy crap! That's a lot of "coin" all right. A street price of $3,200 is insane. I played an original Ventures' Model Mosrite back in the 70s and though the guitar looked interesting in a wacky way and though it was endorsed by my idols, The Ventures, the guitar had a LOT of issues. Mainly it would never stay in tune, the action was awful and the vibrato tailpiece was way more trouble than it was worth.

Now if I'd been smarter then, I'd have just stuck the guitar away in a vault and brought it out and sold it to some loony who wanted it to look at and not play and I'd have been thousands of dollars ahead - could have bought myself a REAL guitar - a collectible Strat or Tele. But I wasn't that smart back then, so I didn't. I also passed on a Mosrite 12-string back in the 70s - just couldn't tune it.

The Ventures legal team (with whom I have had a few skirmishes) and Mosrite Guitars USA are absolute fanatics about counterfeiting. If you ask them, Mosrite guitars are the MOST counterfeited guitars in the world and they'll bust your chops if you even utter the word Mosrite in an eBay auction without definitive proof that your guitar (or amp) is a REAL Mosrite - something that can be hard to do. And eBay always looks the other way when Mosrite attacks!

I notice on their web site that if you click on the REVIEWS link you get a blank page that says "Coming Soon." That's not a great sales feature. And the VIDEOS mostly slam other guitars (including Fenders) for not having a true twangy sound, blah, blah, blah. With regard to the surf classic Pipeline: "The Ventures had a bigger hit with it because the Mosrite Guitars were simply Hotter & twangier than the Fenders." Excuse me? The Chantays went to #4 on the charts and The Ventures never went into the Top 40!

If you want a Mosrite and are willing to drop $3,200 for a questionable reissue, I'd start hounding other sales venues for a REAL Mosrite, 'cause I think you're going to have a very hard time getting your hands on one to play before you buy.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

The Mosrites never showed me anything, even during the popularity of the "surf era". I remember Eric Braun of Iron Butterfly playing one in concert (through a pair of Vox Super Beatles) around 1970 but that's about the last guy I can recall who thought they were worthy instruments. When the comprehensive history of the electric guitar is finally written, Mosrite will be but a footnote.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

And the Mosrites were late on the scene for the SURF movement anyway. The Ventures had put out several albums touting Fender guitars and amps in the early 60s before they decided to try to get rich on their own line of both guitars and amps, both of which were financial failures for everyone but Mosley and he didn't get rich either as there were all kinds of weird complications.

I always loved them, but I never heard any Ventures' song played on Mosrites that could touch what The Astronauts did with all Fender gear.

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

Get thee to the Mosrite Forum to humbly seek guidance and knowledge.

But while there, especially, be nice, be tolerant. The Mosrite Forum is "less testosterone-driven and less diverse," than this excellent e-place. In this opinion, the Mosrite Forum is a generally more "grown up" forum than most musicians' e-hangouts.

As a decades-long Ventures and surf fan, Mosrite seemed the metaphorical holy grail (small letters) of guitars. The reality; it's like dreaming of Disney World as a kid and then actually getting there and having a lifelong-smile experience, afterward. WAY better.

Personal experience; a really nice Mosrite Mk I solidbody is to the Strat you love best, as a Ferrari Testarosa is to a hot Mustang. And just because the Mk I Combo thin body is not "preferred," does not mean that it's any less delicious.

Again, in this opinion, Mosrite-and Mosrite-style guitars are not for everyone, no more than are Strats or D-18s or LPs or 6120s or SGs or Teles.

Mr. Semie Moseley passed 20 years ago, so as with Fender, Gibson, etc., there are no "really, really, ultra-pure true" Mosrites being built, currently.

There are MANY viable and valid playable "Mosrite" options currently ('bought a Dillion VMD-75 some time ago for $300), including excellent Hallmark, Eastwood and Wilson Bros guitars and some knock you on yo AFS(!) handmades and the occasional original.

Best of fortune.

Back in the early 70s I owned a Pan copy of a Ventures Mosrite that was a great guitar and that's about the closest I ever came to playing one.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

A few modern Mosrite practiotioners of note:

Laramie Dean, you can find him playing "Pipeline" on one of the outstanding (free) "Cudra Clover Exotica Hour" podcasts. Not yo' daddy's Chantays or Ventures....

Mel Waldorf, founder-leader of Meshugga Beach Party is arguably one of the best surf instrumentalists today. Catch him doing "Hava Nagilah" on one of Cudra's episodes.

Barneldo (Barry Flanagan) of Hawaii, he does two way beyond excellent long solo bridges to their dramatic "Blind" on Hapa's CD, "Surf Madness."

And there are a bunch of Mosrite-tunes linked to the excellent Mosrite Forum.

seems to me the Idea of owning a Mosrite is much better than actually spending the money on one. thanks for the opinions and thoughts on the matter, i think i would much rather enjoy having $3500. i searched online the history of Mosrite and saw a lot of the disputed claims and stuff like that. So i will chalk this up to the passing fancy category and move on. thanks again everyone.