More thoughts. When I posted that last night I was about 2 hours past my bedtime so please excuse typos, etc.
Another reason I think the little Mosrite "M" was removed from the top of the headstock is the binding around the headstock. This is not a normal feature on a Mosrite Celebrity. I think Semie, or someone else, removed the little "M" and then needed to put binding around it to perhaps cover up a blemish or just wanted to do something different.
Here is an example of a another modified headstock.
I have read that when Mosrite went bankrupt in February, 1969 the authorities locked up the doors. Then there was an auction of all of the inventory to cover debts. Semie and Andy Moseley, along with other prominent employees attended the auction and bought barrels of parts. We know that some guitars were made from these parts. Even Semie made guitars after the auction from these parts and I know from speaking with Andy he was still selling this inventory on eBay up to when he passed away and I believe his son continued to do so.
This guitar I am convinced has a neck for a Celebrity-I, hence the letter A serial number prefix. If Semie built this guitar it would make sense to me he was deciding what to do about losing the Mosrite logo and came up with the "square M" moseley, and experimented with losing the little "M" on the top of the headstock which is a very strong Mosrite trait. It is quite likely this guitar was made specifically for someone and if they asked to have the pickup selector located near the knobs that is something Semie would have done.
It's hard to tell if the Gibson humbuckers were used at the time of the build or a later modification. It would be very interesting to find out the date of these if that is possible. Either way, someone had to slightly modify the pickguard to accommodate them.
The back of the neck being darker than the body is curious to me. We don't see this type of mismatch with the Celebrities. For a blonde, or natural body I would expect to see a natural color neck. In fact, even with Celebrities with a body color, such as red, green, or blue, we see natural necks. This neck looks like it was painted for a sunburst body, giving further notion to an auction build. This neck also has the tiny fret markers as opposed to the larger ones that came in the later 1973-74 era.
This is what I would expect as a color combination between the neck and the body. ( I don't know who the man is).
The side jack Celebrities didn't come until after the 1969 bankruptcy era. We see these on 1972-1974 Celebrities. The white material on the side jack plate and the white pickguard is also unusual for the natural finished Celebrities. All of the examples I've seen had tortoise color, not white or W-B-W. (see the guitar above)
The knobs are what we call "tall hat knobs" that we see on 1972 and later guitars. They are taller in profile and do not have a "V" and "T" as the first generation did.
I think this guitar is a transition piece or custom build for someone. I would sure like to see a pencil rubbing of the serial number or if you can actually read it, let us know what it is.
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