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I finally found some pics this morning of the '58 doubleneck that was on ebay a few years back as "Joe Maphis' personal guitar" (it wasn't) and "The first Mosrite Doubleneck!" (it wasn't) The guy wanted 50,000 dollars for it, I assume it is still for sale...

The penciled date of 10-58 in the cavity matches my info about the run of guitars for the San Fernando music store, I believe this guitar was made in Granada Hills. It's a Mosrite, all right, but compared to the custom guitars Semie was making for Joe Maphis, Larry Collins, Bob Regan and a few others, this one is plain jane and really, really crude....but, cool!

Deke

Deke,
WoW! I remember this one as well! I still have the printout from my computer stashed in a file cabinet (somewhere ). But didn't someone determine that this guitar was thought to be the "1st" Budget or Economy Model Doubleneck about a year ago or so???

Yeah, I think the best way we can look at it is that these 1958-1959 guitars were the first time Semie tried making a "mass-produced" guitar, even if there were only a couple dozen made. They were substantially simpler than the other custom creations he had made up to that point.

So the best guess on this doubleneck and the "Number 1" designation inside the body cavity is that yes, this was the first "production" model doubleneck.

We all know not to really give too much importance to Semie's serial numbers, though, right? They don't mean anything!!!

Deke

Deke Dickerson wrote:Yeah, I think the best way we can look at it is that these 1958-1959 guitars were the first time Semie tried making a "mass-produced" guitar, even if there were only a couple dozen made. They were substantially simpler than the other custom creations he had made up to that point.

So the best guess on this doubleneck and the "Number 1" designation inside the body cavity is that yes, this was the first "production" model doubleneck.

We all know not to really give too much importance to Semie's serial numbers, though, right? They don't mean anything!!!

Deke

Serial Numbers??!?!? What's a Serial Number??............