Postby Deke Dickerson » Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:49 pm
I'll attempt to explain what I know...which isn't much.
In the 50's, one of the things that Semie was famous for was "re-necking" guitars and customizing them for country-western performers. He put necks on Martins for people like Lorrie Collins, Johnny Bond, etc. and even a few Gibson acoustics, like Little Jimmy Dickens J-200 and Skeets McDonald J-200. The customizing thing was one of his side-lines to making complete guitars.
I haven't seen any customized acoustics from the early Bakersfield era--say 1959 to 1965. Semie really seems to have concentrated on the solidbodies and the doublenecks during this time, and his operation was pretty small during this time too, basically making the guitars by hand.
When the big-time kicked in circa 1964 and Semie had the money to start buying big factory machines and hiring more people, they started expanding the product line, and by 1965-1966, you started seeing all of these other models, which I always refer to as the "mass-produced" models, which basically means they were somewhat factory-made as opposed to hand-made (even though, by all accounts, the factory even at its height was basically all batch runs made by hand, just more employees to do it).
The Balladeer and the Serenade were the two acoustics (a small bodied acoustic and a big bodied acoustic) that came out at roughly the same time as the Combo, the Joe Maphis model singleneck (with natural spruce top) and the Joe Maphis model doubleneck (with the 12-string on top).
They must not have made very many of them, because they're really rare these days. I would stick my neck out and say they probably didn't make more than a couple hundred--at MOST--of each model. If they did, you'd see more of them today.
On the other hand, they're not very collectible, or desirable. I think that's due to two factors. The first is that Semie never really knew what he was doing when it came to making acoustic guitars. The woods were not properly dried out and the construction wasn't beefy enough, and the lacquer finish was put on with too many layers, too quickly. The end result--I've never seen one of these acoustics that didn't have a crack in it somewhere. Some of them that you see (like some of the orphans at the Chicago Store in Tucson) have horrible neck block collapses where the top just caves in on itself at the neck block.
The second factor why these acoustics aren't very collectible is simply--like Fender--they were famous for something else. People want a Mosrite Ventures model, they don't necessarily want a Mosrite acoustic.
That being said, I've got a small bodied Mosrite acoustic and it's a joy to play, and it doesn't sound bad either. It does have a repaired crack in the top (because they all do) and the truss rod rattles around inside the neck when you hit certain notes. But it's much better than you'd think.
Hope that helps
Deke
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