Afrigather With its zero fret, Maphis-signature form, and distinctive vibrato arm, this guitar screams Mosrite, however with its personal luxurious hen’s-eye maple physique and different appointments.
Earlier than the Mosrite model was born, its founder, Semie Moseley, was simply an unbiased luthier attempting to make a splash. In the identical method Paul Reed Smith pitched his pre-factory builds to Carlos Santana and Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Moseley discovered his first golden ticket in a Southern Californian picker by the title of Joe Maphis.
Again within the mid-Nineteen Fifties, Moseley received fired from Rickenbacker after making a guitar of his personal. Quickly after, he constructed a three-necked amalgamation that contained a regular guitar, an octave guitar (one octave increased), and a mandolin—all in a single solidbody electrical. The purpose was to draw consideration, and appeal to consideration it did.
Joe Maphis was a flashy nation participant who led the City Corridor Get together radio present, which was beamed throughout Southern California and into Northern Mexico. Maphis requested a double-neck model (with out the mandolin), and from then on Moseley was a recognized entity, crafting about one customized instrument a month for years.
This close-up brings the brass nut, elegant binding, Grover tuners, and sterling silver headstock inlay into focus.
Later, in 1960, Maphis received a correct Moseley-made signature mannequin, with a physique that appeared like an upside-down Stratocaster. Within the early ’60s, the Ventures—the top-selling instrumental rock group who helped codify surf music—turned Mosrite’s distributor. They took a Maphis-style signature guitar as their very own, and created a rush of capital and orders.
Johnny Ramone’s 1965 Mosrite Ventures II mannequin fetched almost $1 million at public sale in 2021.
Enterprise went up, enterprise went down. Mosrite’s distributor agreements and mum or dad firms got here and went. As Moseley wrote to shoppers and inquirers in 1986: “Some day, within the close to future, the Semie Moseley and Mosrite Guitar story shall be in course of. It is going to learn like a fairytale—a drama—a love story; from rags to riches—to rags—to the struggle again, from one main tragedy to a different, from the very starting by means of its evolution to the Nineteen Eighties.”
However by then, regardless of the vagaries of the musical devices business, Moseley was again doing what he had at all times completed finest: constructing unimaginable customized guitars. And that’s the place we decide up the story for this month’s Classic Vaultdiscover.
Walnut pickup rings machined to match the hen’s-eye maple physique encompass these split-coil humbuckers.
After Maphis’ loss of life in 1986, Moseley created this one-of-a-kind magnificence for a good friend, Ross Coan Jr. Whereas customary Joe Maphis fashions had spruce tops and single-coil pickups, this Maphis-style customized construct has a hen’s-eye maple prime and distinctive split-coil humbuckers. But it surely retains the sure neck and beveled edges that Moseley will need to have realized first-hand from Rickenbacker’s Roger Rossmeisl, together with the angled neck pickup, steel nut, dual-knob, and 3-way pickup-selector swap of Moseley’s earlier fashions. And the headstock and fretboard inlays are sterling silver.
Check out these pickup rings, too, which—in contrast to pickup rings on almost some other customized guitar—are remarkably beautiful and carved out of a wooden that completely enhances the maple prime. Clearly, Moseley put quite a lot of care and consideration into this construct. He even stamped the title and date of beginning of his good friend on the final fret and inscribed the again of the headstock: “Handcrafted for Ross Coan Jr. by Semie Moseley 1986.”
It’s inconceivable to place a value on what this guitar would’ve value again then. Whether or not it was a present or a fee, it was a labor of affection—a late-career testomony to Moseley’s guitar-building prowess.
The again of this distinctive guitar is product of figured walnut.
George Gruhn writes that Moseley’s pre-Ventures customized guitars are extremely sought-after by collectors. Johnny Ramone’s 1965 Mosrite Ventures II mannequin fetched almost $1 million at public sale in 2021. However most production-era Mosrites—those who have been notperformed by well-known musicians—usually promote on Reverb within the vary of a number of thousand {dollars}.
Moseley signed and dated the headstock of this guitar constructed for his good friend Ross Coan Jr.
This tradition construct from Moseley himself, who died just some years later, in 1992, is at the moment listed for $12,500.
Sources embrace Reverb listings and pricing information, American Guitars: An Illustrated Historical past by Tom Wheeler, and Gruhn’s Information to Classic Guitars.
