1960’s Silvertone Mosrite Guitar (Back Catalog Memories)

Vintage 1960's Silvertone Mosrite Electric Guitar

With the popularity of surf bands – especially The Ventures – taking hold in the late 1960’s, Mosrite guitars started gaining traction. Soon there were many knockoffs coming from Japan, these two with the Silvertone brand. It was a simple, solid body design, with the Mosrite body shape and featuring the slanted pickup mount. But this one had three pickups with individual on/off switches, making it 50% better than the Mosrite. Not! Bolt-on neck with zero fret, truss rod access in the heel and a crazy long tremolo arm. All in all a pretty good budget version of the real deal with great tone. This model also came in 2 pickup versions, another version with slider volume and tone knobs, and for some reason different headstock shapes were available. I am not 100%, but I think this was due to different import companies. So for example, Sears in USA had a different headstock than Sears in Canada. You can also find the identical guitar with alternate branding, such as Kawai.

Vintage 1960's Silvertone Mosrite Electric Guitar

Vintage 1960’s Silvertone Mosrite Electric Guitar

Here’s the original description from the 1969 Sears catalog:

Solid Body Electric Guitars Triple pickup (7 combinations). Three pickup selector switches. Solo selector switch for quick tone changes. Vibrato tailpiece produces Hawaiian and other special effects. Roller-type bridge adjusts. Ebony fingerboard. Edge-bound body. Highly-polished flame sunburst yellow, shaded to red, shaded to mahogany color. With vinyl-covered lined chipboard case. 1445L–Shpg. wt. 14lbs. $5 monthly. Cash $78.95 2 x 13 7/8 x 41 1/4 in.