Mosrite 1967 Ventures Mark I

1967 Ventures Model I, 22 fret (not including zero fret)with metal nut
made in California by MOSRITE (the original)three color sunburst solid body with bolt on neck. volume,tone and three way switch. with original pick-ups and Moseley tail. not sure about body, may be Alder.
has weight about same as my Am. Standard Strat. nice thin neck and Kluson Dlx tuners. non original hard case. finish is deep and clear has a few dings and finish flaws on back edges, but nothing bad for a thirty-eight year old.

I play a lot of Ventures and it has "the sound", play some country with it also. these are not just for "surf". it goes great with my Fender stage 112se amp, pick-ups get noisy around florescent lights.
I have a Ventures Jazzmaster with hot Duncan soapbars and they come close, but the Mosrite sound is nothing like Fender or Gibson, real hot, not overly bright. can find nothing bad to say about this one.

action is fast, thin neck, small frets, let's go to the races. had to
clean most of the metal parts, good cleaning to the body, replace all the pick-guard screws and the jack, only flaw is neck cavity is a little wide on the upper horn side, but neck has no give.

for its age and condition it may be in better shape than i am and i'm
only a couple years older. someone was pretty good to it. not sure if I will take it out much have only twice and can't stand thinking about it getting damaged. would kill over this one. if I do take it out it will be for special duty only. a backup would be a must, but not because of reliability or durability.

they aint none, Mosrite ( the real one ) is gone. and some of the things I've heard about the people making,and selling them these days
( I say "them" very loosely ) makes me glad I found a good clean real one.

been playing about eighteen years, have a Ventures Jazzmaster, American Standard Strat,Telecaster,G & L ASAT, and the first Aria V.M.
Junior Ventures Model (candy apple red)sold in the U.S. picked it up at the NAMM show in Nashville July of 03. had always looked at the photos of the Mosrites on the back of Mom and Dads Ventures albums they look "thicker" than they realy are. did have a 66 cherry red Combo and it was not half the guitar this one is.

Just a helpful advise for all of you guys who are dreaming to buy a Mosrite guitar reissue and suddenly made a decision to buy it from Ed Roman shop in Las Vegas. I've being deceived and robbed by this man recently for a good sum of money. He refused to refund me that crap that he have sent to me. I have read some other not pleasant reviews about him, so in order to complete the picture about this dealer from Nevada, please read these points about what to expect when you are buying Mosrite guitar from his store:

1. He is saying that his Mosrites are made in USA - That's not true, they are made by Fillmore Company in Japan! So please use your sense and instead of buying his Japanese reissues for 1800$, just go on EABY and buy Japanese copy of even better quality for 1000$ or less. If you are an international buyer and talk on the phone with Ed Roman, he will never tell you that his guitar is made in Japan, unless you will be so lucky to ask him where it's been made.

2. He sold me the guitar with MOSRITE OF CLASSICS logo on the headstock, not MOSRITE OF CALIFORNIA. He will never tell you on the phone what is the logo on the headstock, unless you will be so lucky to ask about it. (I was not that lucky) Neck had a terrible repair on nitrocellulose lacquer and adjustment bolt was missing! That's unbelievable! And he refused to refund this crap! Fraud!!!

3. He is selling Mosrite guitar parts and tells you they are exact copies of original Mosrite guitars - That's not true, they are not exactly the same. If you are buying the neck from him to replace your original, it will NEVER fit your guitar. Japanese copies he is selling have different measurements from US originals!

Thanks for ruining my guitar!
Anybody who have questions or details about this deal, please email me to : andrey90210@hotmail.com. I have a 100% positive feedback on EBAY and I never deceive people, so trust me and each single word of what I?ve wrote here.
Toronto-Canada.
Andrey.

This is a 1967 Ventures model Mark I which was the top of the Ventures model heap. 22 fret Maple neck with bound rosewood fingerboard and the smallest frets known to modern man. Apparently they used small size frets anyway and then milled them down super low. This makes for extremely fast action. Body is the familiar flipped over Strat design with German carved top. The body is, I believe a light alder or basswood. My guitar has been through at least 2 paint jobs and is now an original style metallic blue. The bridge is the patented Mosley roller/featherlight vibrato. Tuners are Kluson 3 x 3 with the Fender style slot on top which is the best kind of tuner IMHO. Pickups are Mosley single coils which look like shorter fatter P-90's, that is where the similarity ends. These baby's are HOT! Front measures 10.75 ohms, rear 11.33. Here is where the unique clean yet gritty Ventures sound comes from. I've played many brands of guitars over the years and these PU's rate up there with my favorites.

Ventures Mosrites have a great sound, period, the end. I play mine through a '56 5E4 Fender Deluxe, a custom made Fender Dual-Professional featuring a '53 5C5 Pro chassis, and a 72 Fender Princeton Reverb. I don't care which one you plug into the sound is there. The middle switch position is especially fine. By fooling with the tone pot and picking position a full pallate of sounds is easy to find. The guitar leans towards the bright side but a nice Gibson-like woody neck tone is also possible. Can be noisy as with all single coils if you're playing near neon lights or TV sets. I like using it with the tweed Deluxe and an old EH LPB-1 power booster to give a clean hot signal which pushes the 6V6's in the Deluxe into nice distortion. I also use a Dano Daddy-O overdrive and a Dan-echo.

I had to restore this guitar to it's previous glory since misguided souls before me had refinitis. All the original parts were there and only needed alittle cleaning to get back up to snuff. I had another 67 back in the late 80's that was totally original with a RED METALFLAKE finish. To use that one for this catagory I'd have to give it a 9.5. Mosrites were virtually hand made since they were always a small outfit. I kicked myself for 12 years since selling that one so I was overjoyed to find this restored model I have now. Realisticly, that is the only way I could afford one now anyway.

Well, this axe is 33 years old with less than caring owners over the years and it's still kicking up some mean licks, nuff said.

Long Gone, R.I.P Semie Mosley. I 'm lucky in that I've acquired the skills to keep my own stuff going. But these guitars require very little maintainance.

In all the 25 years I've been playing and all the axes that have passed though the doors of the house, the Ventures Mosrite Mark I is one of my very favorites along with the 59 Gretsch 6120, LP Junior and Custom and the reverse Firebird V. All of these I've had, sold, and the only ones I've ever regretted were the Mosrite and the LP Junior. I'll hang onto this one forever and if some creep steals it they can go to hell cause I'll never have the bucks to get one again.
IMHO the Mosrites play like butter and I must differ with the other postings concerning the Ventures models that you can't bend, pull-off or hammer the strings. Yes you most certainly can, and with no more effort than any other axe. I can do it with a clean amp setting, and just listen to any vintage Ventures recording, Nokie Edwards was bending, hammering, pulling off like crazy! That opinion of playability is way off base. Also, the vibrato is one of the most sensitive I've ever played and nearly alway comes back in tune unless you really go wild with it. All in all, a great looking, unusual, and top sounding and playing guitar. I give it my Herco Flex-50 solid gold pick award!