IF ONLY...

[Elliot Easton]

kinda silly since they're all made by fillmore anyway and some are assembled and have pups in the states but the guitars are virtually identical. i have one of each.

[Strat-o-rama]

Hi Elliott,
The company Loretta is associated with is called Swing Science. The Mosrites they sell are hand made by a fellow who worked for Semie in the Final Years, named Jesus Diaz Huipe. These instruments are made in much smaller numbers, and sold only in a few retail outlets. Compared to Fillmore, it is a miniscule operation.
Here is a link to a retailer in Japan:

http://www.65basswood.com/index.html

Look carefully at the headstock, and notice Semie Moseley's signature where "The Ventures" logo would be. Apparently, Swing Science is marketing the Mark 1 as The Semie Moseley Signature Model.
In the "Japanese 60 Minutes" video, it would be interesting to know exactly what was being said about the differences.

[Elliot Easton]

Translation please!!! I've had Semie and Loretta to my home several times in the late 80's-early '90's. She always seemed like a very nice person. All this haggling between Dana, Loretta or any other family members seems to be part of Semie's legacy. In life his business dealings were often confusing and convoluted and it's easy to see that all this conflict filtered down from him originally. This is the first i've heard of swing science but they'd have to go a ways to top the quality of Fillmore. I have no idea. I just wish someone, preferably bilingual could help us understand this very confusing situation, with Mosrites being made by several different companies, some assembled in the US, some not, some part of the Ed Roman thing, some Front Porch music. It'll make your head explode.

[MWaldorf]

Don't forget Kurokumo/Dark Cloud too - they make the "Excellent" model Mosrites. I've never seen a Swing Science model in person, so I can't comment on that, but the Kurokumos and the Fillmores are both high quality. The Fillmores with Dana's handwound pickups are the best of the bunch that I've tried. Especially that sunburst '63 sidejack that was at Front Porch, wow!

Besides that, I would have liked to have heard a few more glissandos in that video. Not enough. Never enough.

[rog43win]

Thanks for posting the clip, Paul........very interesting indeed! I agree, to have a store with all those Mosrites hanging on the wall is awesome.....

[oipunkguy]

pretty cool, i wish this video was more about the fillmore brand and less about legal battles...however a great find Paul, thanks for posting!