Saw it on eBay (that's where the pictures are from) and I had to jump on it. It's a bit beat up, but I like to think of that as mojo and the bones are solid. The strings were, of course, rotten, the pots need cleaning, the tuning machines are stupidly stiff and the bridge rollers were all completely seized up with sweaty guitar-player-hand corrosion. I can live with the tuners for now, and the other issues are all fairly easy repairs. For the bridge, I swapped in a set of saddles from an eBay "Mosrite style" bridge, which seems to be a "close enough" fit.
Slapped some new strings on it and plugged it in - not bad! Needs some adjusting, maybe a fret job eventually, and I'll have to assess the neck bow once it acclimates a bit, but not bad at all. Clean sounds really nice, but it distorts pretty quickly unless you roll off on the volume knob. Not sure how to address that yet, or even if it needs addressing.
Neck is surprisingly comfortable, and the string spacing works pretty well for me, too. The trem needs a little fettling (the pivot pins had dropped out in shipping, so the whole arm assembly came off and rattled around, adding some mojo to the "road worn" finish. Oddly, the knobs were off the pots, too. Maybe customs did this for some reason?
Anyway, it's my first time handling something even close to a real deal Mosrite, and I have to say I get it now. I liked the sound and aesthetics before, but having one in hand really brings home how great a design this was.
So, does anyone know if the Avenger bridge and trem measurements match a real Ventures model, or better yet a Hallmark? The roller saddles are really wasted, and while the ones from the eBay knockoff bridge work, I'm not sure they're as close to tolerance as I'd like.
