How Are Early 70s Mosrites?
Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:41 am
I hear Semie Mosley went bankrupt and reorganized and went back into business in 1972. How are the guitars from this era? How do they compare to the 1960s models? Thanks
101Volts wrote:The biggest differences (aside from the unusual models from the decade) are that the necks are wider (but not thicker, or so I heard,) and you could also get Humbuckers in 70s models.
- Austin
101Volts wrote:101Volts wrote:The biggest differences (aside from the unusual models from the decade) are that the necks are wider (but not thicker, or so I heard,) and you could also get Humbuckers in 70s models.
- Austin
I really should have mentioned how the frets are taller on 1970s models. Perhaps not on all models right away (though I've never seen an exception in person,) but bit seems that by 1973, they should be using taller and wider fretwire than the 1960s Speed Fret height.
- Austin
Sarah93003 wrote:101Volts wrote:101Volts wrote:The biggest differences (aside from the unusual models from the decade) are that the necks are wider (but not thicker, or so I heard,) and you could also get Humbuckers in 70s models.
- Austin
I really should have mentioned how the frets are taller on 1970s models. Perhaps not on all models right away (though I've never seen an exception in person,) but bit seems that by 1973, they should be using taller and wider fretwire than the 1960s Speed Fret height.
- Austin
I have found that to be the case on Celebrities as well. I think 1973 was a purposeful move away from the speed frets of the earlier years.
101Volts wrote:Sarah93003 wrote:101Volts wrote:
I really should have mentioned how the frets are taller on 1970s models. Perhaps not on all models right away (though I've never seen an exception in person,) but bit seems that by 1973, they should be using taller and wider fretwire than the 1960s Speed Fret height.
- Austin
I have found that to be the case on Celebrities as well. I think 1973 was a purposeful move away from the speed frets of the earlier years.
I should be a bit more specific. I'm not quite sure that the earliest date for this change-over was in 1973, perhaps it's 1972, but it looks like the date is at least as early as 1973.
The reason is, I have a Mosrite Humbucker dated to late (October or November) 1973, and I've heard of one of the 350 models with its pickups dated to that year. But I'm also not sure when the 300, 350, and Blues Bender 500 models were first introduced for sale. It's a bit hard without having records of all dates on the bottoms of the pickups from each of these models.
- Austin
Sarah93003 wrote:It's hard to say for certain. All of the 1972 Celebrities I've seen had the speed frets. If I'm not mistaken, I think the move to jumbo frets went with introducing humbuckers in 1973. There may be a "cross over" specimen. I've seen that before.