Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

User avatar
GattonFan
Master Contributor
Posts: 1287
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:36 pm
Location: St Louis area
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby GattonFan » Sun Dec 29, 2019 6:13 pm

Hopefully Sarah, the resident Celebrity guru, will weigh in. She is a wealth of information about these guitars.

Dennis
So many guitars; So little time ..

User avatar
Sarah93003
Master Contributor
Posts: 3810
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:26 pm
Location: Westlake Village, CA
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby Sarah93003 » Tue Dec 31, 2019 4:18 pm

Hi Bob,

Congratulations on the Celebrity III. I happen to have documented this guitar about ten years ago. At that time it had the trapeze tailpiece on it. It also had the Kluson "butter bean" tuners, so those have been changed out. At that time it also had Mosrite pickups with Mosrite covers. The original bridge has also been replaced with an aftermarket bridge.

The fret markers were as you see them, even ten years ago. It is my opinion this was done after it left the factory. The plate on the back is also not factory. The next time you change strings go ahead and take up the back plate and I think you will see the original three holes with depressions for the old style grommet/washer.

It has faded quite a bit in the last ten years, but on the back side there is unique fading striations that are evident today as they were ten years ago. I am heading out, but will try to post up some photos later from when I collected them.
____________________
1965 Mosrite Celebrity Prototype with Vibramute
1972 Mosrite Celebrity-III
1977 Gibson MK-53
1982 Fender Bullet
1994 Gretsch Streamliner G3155 Custom
2005 Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
2006 Jude Les Paul 12 String

brrobert
Regular Member
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:15 pm
Location: Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby brrobert » Tue Dec 31, 2019 7:36 pm

Awesome! Looking forward to your pics. Thanks!

User avatar
Sarah93003
Master Contributor
Posts: 3810
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:26 pm
Location: Westlake Village, CA
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby Sarah93003 » Tue Dec 31, 2019 8:29 pm

Serial Number

Image

Kluson tuners

Image

In the case

Image

Original pickups, bridge, and trapeze tailpiece.

Image

Fret markers

Image

Rear of bout. Note the faded portion matches the previously posted images.

Image
____________________
1965 Mosrite Celebrity Prototype with Vibramute
1972 Mosrite Celebrity-III
1977 Gibson MK-53
1982 Fender Bullet
1994 Gretsch Streamliner G3155 Custom
2005 Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
2006 Jude Les Paul 12 String

brrobert
Regular Member
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:15 pm
Location: Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby brrobert » Wed Jan 01, 2020 6:52 am

Wow... this is so cool! Same guitar. Thanks for this, Sarah. I love guitar archaeology, of what happens to a guitar over its life.

To me, one of the mysteries of the inlays is that the small dots on the sides of the triangles are identical to the small dots at the end the neck-- which are obviously original. How did the person doing the inlaying have access to the Mosrite dots?

I really like the way it sounds-- very Ventures Live in Japan. I took the pickup out to see who made it. No markings-- a picture is below. Any guesses on where it came from? Whoever made it nailed the tone.
Image

User avatar
Sarah93003
Master Contributor
Posts: 3810
Joined: Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:26 pm
Location: Westlake Village, CA
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby Sarah93003 » Wed Jan 01, 2020 3:46 pm

The little dots are the factory inlays and someone later added the triangles. As you can see they just carefully inserted them between the existing dots. You can see the factory inlays in the Celebrity III neck below to see what I mean. Somewhere I have seen close ups of these inlays and they look like they were not done by a professional luthier.

Image


Some of our folks know a lot more about pickups than I do, but from the backside they look to be original to me and perhaps someone just used different covers. Hopefully someone will confirm this for us. As long as you like the sound that is the first priority! :)
____________________
1965 Mosrite Celebrity Prototype with Vibramute
1972 Mosrite Celebrity-III
1977 Gibson MK-53
1982 Fender Bullet
1994 Gretsch Streamliner G3155 Custom
2005 Gibson Les Paul Standard Plus
2006 Jude Les Paul 12 String

brrobert
Regular Member
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 8:15 pm
Location: Wisconsin
Contact:

Re: Mosrite Celebrity 3 with odd features

Postby brrobert » Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:45 pm

Thank you, Sarah-- you are quite a resource!

Hopefully someone will weigh in on the pickups. Years ago, I had an early Ventures Model, with sand cast vibramute and everything. It was pretty cool how rough the wood work was under the control plate-- clearly hand made. I wish I still had that guitar. The back of those pickups looked like these, but I suppose that is no way to know for certain if they are original, especially since construction wasn't always uniform in those days.

These guitars that have interesting lives always fascinate me. You could say why would they have taken the pickup covers but not the pickups-- doesn't seem to make sense, but they look original under the hood. And why they left the knobs, switch tip, truss rod cover, etc. Part of the provenance of old guitars like this is the incomprehensibility, I suppose.


Return to “Mosrite Guitars & Basses Vintage USA”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 140 guests