What a bizarre coincidence that this thread should start up on the Forum! Two days ago Adam and I went to drop off some stuff with Steve Soest, long time repair guy and vintage guitar expert down in Orange County. I remembered Steve had mentioned the surfboard guitars a long time ago, and since Adam was with me, I brought it up again.
Steve gave us the full scoop on these guitars, which totally blew my mind. Below, you'll see reproductions from a Japanese guitar magazine that carried the story, and luckily Adam loosely translated it for me (not to mention, Steve told us the basic story while we were there).
The speculation is correct, these guitars were actually created by two guys who worked for the Binks Spray Gun company. One guy (John Gregory) had Mosrite as a client, they used Binks spray guns and paint supplies and he would go by the factory quite a bit and knew Semie well. John was intrigued by the possibilities of making guitars out of alternative materials like plastic or fiberglass (even though these guitars were made of wood). After seeing some of Semie's new guitar designs, he proposed to make guitars that looked like surfboards to see if Mosrite might be interested in mass producing them.
John Gregory enlisted the help of a guy named Al Hartle who also worked for Binks to do the construction of the guitars. They did use Mosrite necks, pickups, bridges, vibratos, etc. but the bodies were made by Hartle. There were a total of 2 guitars, 2 12-strings and 3 basses made.
They took the guitars to a local automotive shop to have them painted, and presumably pin-striped. These guitars have been touted as having actual Von Dutch pinstriping on them, but after reading this story, there doesn't seem to be any proof of that. More than likely, the pinstriping was referred to as "Von Dutch" because he was so associated with pinstriping--the way that Kleenex is associated with facial tissues--there is no actual proof that Von Dutch himself did the pinstriping.
When Gregory brought the finished guitars back to Mosrite, Semie thought it might be a good idea to get some publicity by giving a set of three to the new psychedelic band the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Ed King apparently said "With this, you've gone too far" and after hearing this story it seems unlikely that the Strawberry Alarm Clock ever used the guitars (in fact, I've been waiting for 20 years to see a photo of them holding the guitars....surely that must exist somewhere, even if they never used them).
Semie apparently then chose to focus on the new Dobro models and told Gregory that if the demand ever materialized, they would consider putting the instruments into production. Not long after this, Gregory made his usual rounds to Bakersfield and found the Mosrite factory closed and out of business.
Artie's story about the guitars being for sale in the 80's fills in the last hole here, it sounds like Gregory kept the instruments himself and not the Strawberry Alarm Clock guys. The three that were the "Strawberry Alarm Clock" guitars got sold a couple of times and eventually went into the Chinery collection, then after Chinery died a store called E-Guitars in San Raphael, CA bought them. I saw the guitars personally at E-Guitars a couple years after Chinery died, probably 2003 or 2004, and asked if they were for sale. The owner replied he had TURNED DOWN an offer of $500,000 for the three guitars (yes, half a mil). About 3 years ago, the guy from E-guitars was trying to raise money to restore a historic recording studio in Marin County and put the three on ebay. They sold for $52,000 and I don't know where they went after that....
The other guitars made by Gregory and Hartle are out there somewhere. Steve Soest apparently bought the THIRD bass from Al Hartle and sold it at a vintage guitar show around 1989 or 1990 (this is the one pictured on the first page of the article below). Where the others are, who knows.
Note in the vintage (Aug. 1967) photo on page two that there is a snapshot of two of the other instruments sitting in front of a tube Mosrite amp! Apparently Steve and Al Hartle went to his garage to look for the amp and discovered that a family member had taken the amp without permission to pawn it for cash. In fact, who knows, that might be the very tube Mosrite amp that list member John Lackey has...?
The last bit in the Japanese article quotes Semie Moseley, who says he has no idea what happened to those "Safety Pin Guitars." So....since Semie called them safety-pin guitars, does that mean we should too? I like the Mosrite "Surfite" better....
I'm on the case to see if I can track down Gregory or Hartle, if they're even still alive. I'm sure the guitars are long gone but perhaps there are more photos.
Artie....your story makes me cry. But those were the 80's. Who knew? 333 dollars per guitar was a fortune in them days.
Deke
