mosriteforum.com

Ran across this article on Mosrite 'history'. Perhaps this is already on the Forum somewhere so please excuse me if I'm repeating it now; it makes quite interesting reading:

http://group.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... 9213157852

That article was from the Bakersfield newspaper a few years back....the "Bakersfield Californian." They did quite an extensive series on Bakersfield music, including profiles on a lot of the area musicians. Most of that stuff is online if you look. I thought the Mosrite article was good, even if the facts were somewhat fast and loose. 50,000 guitars? There were maybe 6,000 Ventures models made in the 1960's heyday, and those were by far the best selling Mosrites of all time. There are a few other facts that are whimsical, hard-to-research claims. Still, it's a good article.

Deke

Deke, are you sure about only 6,000 made? At their heyday, Mosrite could not make them fast enough, and I just got done reading about KAPA guitars in Vintage Guitars, where they said that 120,000 Kapa guitars were sold between 1962-1970. When Kapa closed, they sold off their parts to Semie and also Micro-Frets......so, I'm kind of wandering if that number for Mosrites might be a tad hair off.......I mean........go find a Kapa..........?????

Deke Dickerson wrote:50,000 guitars? There were maybe 6,000 Ventures models made in the 1960's heyday

That could very well account for the premium prices they command on the market today... (think I'm going to try to have another go at my time machine...)

Veenture:

(think I'm going to try to have another go at my time machine...)

Got an extra seat? I'll join ya'!......

What's the highest serial number found on a Ventures model Mark I? I assume that once the SNs got to 4999 the "V" prefix was added. How far into the "V" series did the Ventures logo get dropped?

I know the bass SNs started at 5000, and at least according to Tym's site, 7112 is a Ventures model bass.

Yeah, please don't take this as me saying I know exactly how many Mosrites were made....I don't think even Semie knew that. But one can infer that if the best selling Mosrite guitar was the Mosrite Ventures model made between 1963 and 1967 and they only got up to about 5000 serial numbers, there is no way for all the lesser selling models to add up to tens of thousands of other guitars. It's just not numerically possible.

I'm sure if you included all the Japanese reissues, Fillmore and Excellent and Firstman and the bootlegs, it would be more than 50,000 guitars total, but not the instruments Semie made during his lifetime.

Deke

Deke posted:

Yeah, please don't take this as me saying I know exactly how many Mosrites were made....

Deke,
LOL! No, I was questioning the numbers compared to how many Kapas were produced (roughly 120,000 units including the Japanese Kapa imports).
As far as possibly 50,000 Mo's being made in their heyday, that just might be plausible. But I'm thinking of not only just 'the Ventures Model' (MARK I),
but a TOTAL of ALL of their Models. The Balladeer, Serenade, Joe Maphis Models, Celebrity's, Combo's, Gospels, Dobro's, and THESE are just the ones
that were built only during the 60s era......so 50,000 units might just be plausible...or more...