Shortscale, I am 50 in a couple of weeks (UKers, or particularly keen foreigners - join me, we're off to my local, it's great). I wanted to mark that landmark event with a nice guitar. I've sold a lot of kit the last couple of years to cover both a bicycle purchase, and times of no money. Mainly, I really miss having a telecaster. In order to raise funds, I'd arranged to drop my vinyl records in to a local record shop to see if they wanted any (I hadn't opened any of the boxes they were stored in for thirteen years). To my enormous surprise, they paid me a grand for them. And we all know the phrase about "A fool and his money...".
At this point in the story, I'm going to flip the chronology a little bit, because I was posting in the Diary Thread about buying a guitar in Exeter. This is the second guitar I've bought this week (!), and was the primary objective of the mission.
I've been hankering for a 62 Custom Telecaster for quite a while now. Euan is more than a little to blame for this - his CAR birthday tele is lovely. Prices have skyrocketed, but I think the double-binding looks really classy, and I've never had a tele with a rosewood fretboard before. This one came up on Facebook Marketplace because the fella had done a big price drop on a guitar that had been listed a long time ago. One long Panda drive later, and it's mine. It's a 2013 MIJ one, fairly light (7.5lb) and the neck is great - oval shaped, not too deep but quite wide feeling. The guy has swapped the pickups out for Tonerider Hot Classics (I think I really like them? I know the standard ones aren't up to much), done the four way switch mod, and trialled about three different types of compensated saddles. Was a noice proice, we were both happy.
I love it.
...and this cheeky little corner on the pickguard that you never see when you're holding the guitar is my favourite daft detail in the world:
Now let's turn the clock back, shall we? I've always wanted a Mosrite. I had an Eastwood Johnny Ramone copy for twenty minutes, but it was beyond godawful. I'll never be able to afford a proper one, and besides, the necks on them are so thin and narrow, I wouldn't like it. But I've had a saved search for "Morales" on eBay for years. This has done nothing but flag up boring acoustic guitars that people have listed in the wrong section. Tym Guitars has written a couple of really good blog posts about them.. They're (comparatively) high-end Japanese Mosrite copies made in the late sixties. Importantly for me, they've got bigger necks.
And one cropped up for sale thirty miles from me.
The guy was lovely, and I bought it from him. It's so ridiculously good. I was prepared for it to be a bit iffy - it has a laminate neck, which I associate with iffy Kawai Woolworths guitars from car boot sales. But it's so high quality! Neck isn't a monster - maybe 22mm thick at the twelfth fret? He'd replaced the dying original pickups with Klone Parts pickups, which sound great. I was most excited about the trem; I've never had a Mosrite trem before (gotta catch 'em all!). It's like a Bigsby that I don't hate! And really light touch - like an even-more-subtle Jazzmster trem. And - and this is a big deal with these - it's lighter than my Jazzmaster. It's from 1968! If that was a Fender, I wouldn't have had change out of my grand.
(in fairness, I went £100 over my grand for these two, but everybody's happy, and I'll cash in my WHSmiths vouchers on my birthday).
Please forgive the state of the sofa in the furniture in this pic. Bengal kitten innit.
I am so chuffed (mainly) ladz.
And a big thank you to Euan, who's been the enabler's enabler in talking me throughout the tele purchase.
there's a guy who makes really good guitars for himself. He once made a really nice Mosrite copy and even the tremolo from scratch out of a couple of blanks of aluminum.
