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Not sure if this qualifies as a "vintage" guitar, but it's not technically a reissue, so...yeah I finally brought the nokie model home yesterday. I love it! This guitar is a surf rock lover's dream. It has definitely been played...there is some wear on the arm rest, and the frets are worn in some spots. But, it doesn't buzz at all, and plays great, so I think it's got plenty of life left. I played the wood out of it for a couple hours and ended up breaking a string eventually, so I decided I'd just replace them and take some pictures while I was at it. All of the pics are up here, but for now I'll just post some of the interesting bits.

Couple shots of the overall guitar:





Bridge and bridge pickup:



Do the trem blocks always have the string holes staggered like this?



Controls:



Neck pickup:



Neck pickup out...notice the wood / putty, and the bare wire for ground, which is only insulated in the control cavity:



Controls...not sure if that tape is factory? That tan wire is the ground from the neck:



Surprised to find out this has 500K pots...solder job is quite sloppy too:



Volute at the headstock:



Headstock / engraving. Notice how one screw on the truss rod cover is a different color:



The maple cap has a bit of flame to it:



Well, I think that's it for now. I'll be making some recordings with this shortly...I think this will be my main guitar for a while I like this so much I may order a Hallmark 60 Custom when I get the money, just to see the difference.

Hi Dillon,
Great looking guitar! Wish I had one. Are both your pickups of that construction? I had a guitar turn up with one of those pickups and I thought it was a Japanese job. Any other ideas out there about the pickups with the putty and plate?

And yes, the trems have always had offset string holes. There's a thread somewhere on the forum in which folks speculate on the meaning.

Great pictures!

Super pictures -what a treat, thanks for showing us! So now a proper "congrats" is in order . I shouldn't be jealous but I am a little...even though I have a very nice Hallmark 60 Custom

Oh, yeah, staggered string holes ..... viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1849&hilit=staggered+string+holes

Beautiful!

Thanks guys!

handbrake wrote:Hi Dillon,
Are both your pickups of that construction? I had a guitar turn up with one of those pickups and I thought it was a Japanese job.

That thought crossed my mind as well. I didn't take the bridge pickup out, but it does appear to be different...it doesn't have that bare wire for ground like the neck does, and the wires are different colors. Is there any way to tell? (Does anyone have a Japanese Mosrite they'd be willing to take the pickups out of to compare?)

I'm actually not entirely convinced this is a US made guitar, despite the fact that it "looks" more authentic than that Fillmore reproduction I linked to a while back. Even so, it sounds great and plays great...so I don't plan on changing a thing

Dillon wrote:Thanks guys!

handbrake wrote:Hi Dillon,
Are both your pickups of that construction? I had a guitar turn up with one of those pickups and I thought it was a Japanese job.

That thought crossed my mind as well. I didn't take the bridge pickup out, but it does appear to be different...it doesn't have that bare wire for ground like the neck does, and the wires are different colors. Is there any way to tell? (Does anyone have a Japanese Mosrite they'd be willing to take the pickups out of to compare?)

I'm actually not entirely convinced this is a US made guitar, despite the fact that it "looks" more authentic than that Fillmore reproduction I linked to a while back. Even so, it sounds great and plays great...so I don't plan on changing a thing

Do you still have a chance to photograph the underside of that bridge pickup?

Yep, I've got no problem with loosening the strings to check that out. Will report back tonight

Wow....beautiful guitar and great photos too! Thanks for posting it.......

awesome guitar! interesting thing is the pick guard and bridge construction is more common with semie's late work, not sure about the pickups. I bet adam would know though. I do know that one of the japanese companies were making a nokie model (i think it was fillmore, but I'm not sure) but 500 k pots are common on most mosrites. are these pickups the smooth cover humbuckers, or are they the p-90 version?
ps- just as a hint of something I do when polishing frets on mosrites, not telling you what to do. I use a buffing polish (same stuff I would use to remove scratches from lacquer) on the frets instead of the steel wool, just because the fret profile is so low. this might give you longer life in these frets. and since you have a finished maple top on the neck, you can go ahead buff the whole neck. if you don't have any buffing polish, a decent white or yellow car wax will work too.

oipunkguy wrote:interesting thing is the pick guard and bridge construction is more common with semie's late work

Hmmm, really? In what way? I like the idea of the 12-string bridge, because it allows you to space the strings out more. Unfortunately, I've found that's the cause of my string breakage issue. I broke two more strings tonight, in the very same manner that I did last night...the strings literally came unraveled from the ball end while using the vibrato. After returning the strings to the center position of the saddles, I've had no trouble at all.

So as promised, here are some pics of the bridge pickup. String thing about it is that it's not like the neck, with the putty. Also, the neck appears to be a two-wire pup whilst the bridge is obviously a 4-wire cut down into two. Check it out:





Completely different! That aluminum base plate (absent from the neck pickup, or otherwise covered in putty) is obviously hand cut as well. Also not sure what that white stuff in the pickup cavity is. Interesting. I guess it's true that these were pieced together from whatever leftover parts they had at the time.