MOSRITE and HALLMARK

[Veenture]

Hello to all you Mosrite fans,
I’m new here and this is all new to me, so please bear with me.
The reason I started playing guitar since the 60s (on and off) was because of the popularity of THE SHADOWS and I remember well buying my first guitar in Johannesburg on down payment as so many young boys like me were doing. It was a brand new red Hofner Stratocaster look-alike since I couldn’t afford a Fender. A brand new Fender only came to me in 1973 (living in my home country of Holland again), when I traded the Hofner in for that “Ultimate Strat”. My son has it now and I play a MIM Fender Classic 50s reissue, also a fine instrument (Daphne blue!) but from now on it will have to share me with another guitar! Read on…

Now, since 1962 I also became a huge fan of THE VENTURES and as you may know they were playing Fenders too(!) but in 1965 they switched to Mosrite (played them “exclusively” he, he). I didn’t take much notice of this Mosrite guitar pictured on the rear of their lp records and must confess that in the beginning I deemed it to be a rather “cheapo-looking” guitar and didn’t give it another thought (gasp…sorry fans, it had to be a Fender in those days, but not to worry, I love Mosrite too!).

Funny thing is, many years later a sudden indescribable yearning hit me like a brick! I now wished dearly for that ‘strange-looking’ guitar pictured on some of my Ventures album covers. So I was wondering if Mosrites were still being made and perhaps sold in ‘the music shop around the corner’ even…(how painfully naïve!)

No, not so easy! I soon realised I was years too late and had yet to find out about the price tag on a genuine (vintage) Mosrite. I am amazed too that there are so many copies and fakes etc. Some(also expensive) Japanese and Australian copies look appealing but it seemed all so far away and out of reach for me. Furthermore I don’t speak Japanese and most so-called copies don’t appeal to me much anyway. I found this very disheartening but my longing for that Ventures Mosrite wouldn’t go away and I kept feeling a strong need to keep on ‘looking’ -as if for a lost love almost…

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS!

In my continued search effort I stumbled upon the name “HALLMARK” by chance. My first thought was: “yet another one of those copy-cats”. However, this thought was quickly to be proved unfounded as I was becoming more and more convinced that I’d found what I was looking for, whilst further homing-in on the Hallmark thing.
To keep it short I didn’t go looking any further and ended up buying a superb instrument from Hallmark’s sympathetic guitar builder, Bob Shade.

Here’s one of my recent email messages to him:

“Happy New Year to you Bob,

This is to let you know that today my 60 Custom Three-Tone-Burst arrived safely and in good order. And so soon –within one week of ordering it and coming all the way across the Atlantic. What a lovely surprise, I was counting on a couple of weeks, at the least!

You’ve picked a nice one for me indeed!
After inspecting and getting acquainted with this BEAUTY, I quickly hit it off by playing “DRIVING GUITARS”, one of my favourite Ventures’ tunes. It was wonderful and I found it very appropriate.

For what it’s worth, here are some of my thoughts on “MOSRITE” and “HALLMARK”:
Having done some checking on the web I must conclude that The Hallmark(60 Custom) is a true and legitimate member of the Mosrite(Ventures model) Family, branching out proudly and prominently from the main family tree trunk.
The long lost twin brother of the “VENTURES model MOSRITE” has finally surfaced, giving us fans a second chance to finally own one and not having to be a millionaire too!

I’m so glad you had decided upon starting producing the “VENTURES model MOSRITE” again, I love it! The Hallmark 60 Custom truly stands out on it’s own, leaving the host of Mosrite copies far behind! Actually calling the Hallmark a “Mosrite copy” would do it injustice. I feel that this model will go on to sell itself, by word of mouth; no advertising necessary…

Here’s one proud owner anyway, feeling sure that it will give him the same amount of pleasure(if not more) than he would have otherwise had from owning a vintage Mosrite!

THANK YOU BOB SHADE!

Yours sincerely,
Paul”


Conclusion:
I feel very comfortable in finally having come as close to the VENTURES MODEL MOSRITE as I will ever get and am glad and relieved to have secured my “Ventures Mosrite” before Bob Shade may one day decide to stop making them!

If some of you reading this have similar thoughts to mine and are still looking as I have done, it’s worth it to check out: http://www.hallmarkguitars.com first and make a (Mos)’rite’ decision!

Wishing everyone a good 2009 Mosrite year!'
Veenture

[dubtrub]

Veenture,

Glad to see you finally got through the registration part of this forum. Welcome aboard.

There are several members of the forum that own Hallmark Custom 60s and are very happy with them. The are every bit a part of the Mosrite family as the made in Japan Mosrites. There is a ton of information on this website about Hallmark guitars as well as Bob Shades' assistant luthier is an active member of this forum. When you get a chance check out the lengthy thread in the Modern Mosrite forum about the Hallmarks.

[Dennisthe Menace]

Welcome Paul .

[Veenture]

Veenture,

Glad to see you finally got through the registration part of this forum. Welcome aboard.

There are several members of the forum that own Hallmark Custom 60s and are very happy with them. The are every bit a part of the Mosrite family as the made in Japan Mosrites. There is a ton of information on this website about Hallmark guitars as well as Bob Shades' assistant luthier is an active member of this forum. When you get a chance check out the lengthy thread in the Modern Mosrite forum about the Hallmarks.

Nice to know dubtrub, thanks, I'll do just that!
Veenture

[MWaldorf]

Welcome Veenture, and thanks for sharing your story. Interesting that you wound up with a Mosrite style instead of a Burns. Do you play with echo? Vintage European multi-head echos are about as rare here as Mosrites are in Europe. Forget finding a Binson!

Mel

[mosman]

Welcome to the forum Veenture. Don't feel to embarrassed about expecting to find Mosrites in your local guitar shop. I had the same experience when the ' bug ' bit me too and I spent many wasted hours going into shops and coming out empty handed and very disillusioned. Now, of course I know differently and thanks to the Japanese Mosrites and Hallmarks ( not to mention ebay ) I know where I can get 'em.
And to this day I STILL get bewildered looks from guitar shop staff when I mention Mosrite.
It's up to us to spread the word!

[Veenture]

Welcome Veenture, and thanks for sharing your story. Interesting that you wound up with a Mosrite style instead of a Burns. Do you play with echo? Vintage European multi-head echos are about as rare here as Mosrites are in Europe. Forget finding a Binson!

Mel

Having a (Shadows)Burns as well wouldn't hurt me Mel, but for me there are limits I'm afraid. I'm perfectly happy with my Hallmark Mosrite now as it is, taking preference over a Burns ANYTIME. Yes I play mostly with echo for Shadows' and Spotnicks' stuff; Ventures are more into reverbbbbb! I use the Swedish-made AMTECH AGE PRO (set me back for about 1,000 EURO's which is even more, expressed in US dollars nowadays sadly to say).

My relationship with my first (BOSS)echo stomp box never really took off and I got rid of it. The Belgian ATLANTIS echo is very sought after too here but sadly not made any more. But I'm getting carried away; the echo topic can go on for any length of time and would be more suitable for another forum! (Semie Mosely wasn't into echo, was he?)

I'm having fun here, thanks!
Paul

[Veenture]

Welcome to the forum Veenture. Don't feel to embarrassed about expecting to find Mosrites in your local guitar shop. I had the same experience when the ' bug ' bit me too and I spent many wasted hours going into shops and coming out empty handed and very disillusioned. Now, of course I know differently and thanks to the Japanese Mosrites and Hallmarks ( not to mention ebay ) I know where I can get 'em.
And to this day I STILL get bewildered looks from guitar shop staff when I mention Mosrite.
It's up to us to spread the word!

Thanks for you testimony Mosman, you're so right and the internet provides us excellent opertunities for spreading the word, after all, it is through the web that I finally met my Mosrite ...and you guys!

Cheers,
Paul

[Desert Surfer]

Welcome, Veenture to our forum. I enjoy your story a lot.

You are not alone about not knowing Mosrites until much later. I was born in Taiwan but have been living in the US for over 33 years. I have been a die hard Ventures fan since 1966 when I was 19. I never met the Ventures during those years, not even attended any of their concerts. I knew them only from the photos on the cover of their albums. The Ventures came to Taiwan for an 1 night show at one of the prestige Hotels in Taipei in 1966. Being a poor student at that time, of course I could not afford to go. (Ticket price was about 1/3 of my yearly school tuition)

All my guitar friends in school wanted to play like The Ventures (especially like Nokie Edwards) I could not join the band because I did not have money to buy an electric guitar. Most of us never heard of Mosrites at that time. We heard of Fenders, but no one could afford them as they were for the super rich kids. The best we could dream of was to own a Japanese made Teisco which I could not even afford. I ended up playing The Ventures tunes with a cheap acoustic guitar. Regardless, I had a lot fun.

I have never dreamed of meeting Nokie in person after 40 some years later in the US and sat next to him on his 72nd birthday party. Thanks to Danny on this forum (a.k.a dubtrub ), I have owned my first true Mosrite guitar (see link here for the restoration story)

http://www.timelineguitars.com/page/page/5468527.htm

Now I have owned 3 Mosrites and 2 Japanese clones

I also own a Hallmark Stradette guitar which I like it a lot.

Again, welcome to this great forum!

[gplayer]

Welcome from another 60 Custom owner...and new guy.