Mos-

made

 updated 20/12/2011

Moser

1986 to present

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Images eBay:

Moses

Moses Carbon Graphite - necks and guitar components by Steve Mosher since 1980.

Mosrite guitars

1963 to 1969 and beyond

Important dates [Source: Gruhn's Guide To Vintage Guitars and Tym from Tym Guitars 13/10/2008]

1950s Semi Moseley worked for bigsby before starting to build Moseley guitar part time in Bakersfield, California.

1955 Semie Moseley works for Rickenbacker (less than a year)

1958 Semie starts making guitars full time.

1963 Mosrite guitars full time, endorsed by the Ventures who had distribution rights.

1965 Moseley acquires rights to Dobro and makes resonators in Bakersfield.

1969 Ventures arrangement ends and short lived deal with the Thomas Organ Company (which distributed Vox in the USA) before Mosrite shuts down.

1972 - 1975 Brief resurrection of Mosrite with Kustom as a distributor.

1975 Moseley signs agreement with Pacific Music Supply, but few instruments made.

1977 Moseley builds some Original Ventures models for Japan market

1988 Moseley was building guitars in Jonas Ridge, NC

1992 Moseley dies - production is now Booneville, AR

1994 his wife Loretta resumes production in Jonas Ridge

2000 Ed Roman, Las Vegas buys Mosrite name.

Dating Mosrite Guitars

http://www.tymguitars.com.au/mosriteinfo_serials.html

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mochizuki/kiyoshi/kiyoshi/mosriteowner/ownerlist.html

Jedistar opinion

Tym is probably the world authority on Mosrite Guitars.  If you are looking for a lovingly crafted remake then I would definitely check out Tym Guitars (see T).  If your pilgrimage ever brings you to Brisbane then you must visit Tym's workshop.  I have been to a lot of guitar shops on three continents and this one is unique. (Note jedistar has no affiliation with Tym).

Other Mosrite info

http://www.edromanguitars.com/guitar/mosrite/counterfeit_mos.htm for the rant

http://home.exetel.com.au/mosrite/links.php?brand=Mosrite

http://www.audiogrid.com/guitar/index.html

http://marksma.home.insightbb.com/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosrite

Mosrite Gallery http://home.exetel.com.au/mosrite/Jimi%20Hendrix.php

Mosrite catalogs http://www.tymguitars.com.au/mosriteinfo_flyers.htm

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Images Chicago Music Exchange:

SL Mossman

1965 to present

Stuart Mossman (d 1999) began making guitars in 1961 or 5 depending on the article you read.  He spent four years building 40 or 50 prototypes in his garage at home. By the end of the decade he had incorporated S. L. Mossman Guitars in Winfield, Kansas and moved into facilities at Strother's Field outside of town.  A devastating partnership with Conn in the late 1970s saw a lot of guitars damaged due to incompetent storage at the Conn warehouse.  The company limped on until 1986 (The original Mossman company produced about 7,500 guitars) when it was bought by Scott Baxendale. Baxendale sold the company to John Kinsey and Bob Casey in 1989. In 1991 Mossman Guitars was moved to Sulphur Springs, Texas where it continues to this day.  [Source: Mossman Guitars]

The SL Mossman Story - Article in Guitar Player Magazine

http://vintageguitarpro.com/moss.shtml

http://www.colfaxguitarshop.com/mossman.htm

http://www.usd.edu/smm/Tours/LillibridgeGallery/MossmanGuitarOConnor.html

http://mysite.verizon.net/sortascending/index.htm

See a 1973 Mossman guitar price list and beautiful examples

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Images 1976 and 1980 labels eBay:

Motor Ave Guitars

2002 to present

"MotorAve has been on the headstock of my guitars since 2002.
Right now I build them in my home shop in Durham NC, but the bulk of the guitars I've made (so far) were built in LA.
MotorAve guitars are numbered consecutively, regardless of model, in the order they were built. The number is on either the front or back of the headstock, in the form of a decal under the lacquer.

Dating Motor Avenue guitars

Starting in around 2005 I began engraving on the underside of the pickguard the name and location of the company; the serial number; the date of completion; and the name of the customer the guitar was made for. Smaller parts, truss-rod covers, jackplates, etc..  are also engraved with the serial number. (all parts are handmade, and not interchangable from one guitar to the next)  Guitars made earlier than this have no date code." [Source: Mark Fuqua, email, 2/8/2008]

Durham North Carolina since July 2007. Before that Hollywood, California

Peter Motter

This guitar found for sale on ebay in Poland. Reportedly made around 1900 in Vienna.

Mottola

Liutaio Mottola,

CF Mountain

CF Mountain guitars were 1970s copies of US Martin, Gibson etc guitars.  Says established 1948 on the headstock. ? Made by Headway - I saw the word Headway on a Japanese Yahoo page for this brand of guitar.

One C F Mountain guitar has "Mountain Folk" Stamped inside, and in Large Mother of Pearl  Letters it has "Hayashi down the center of the headstock, the way high end Martins have "Martin" on the headstock. and

The name of company was Hayashi musical instrument Ltd. They produced mainly the copy of Martin and Guild to early 80's from the middle of 70's. The builder that produces many of them was Mr.Yasuo Momose. Now, Mr.Momose is most famous guitar builder in Japan. He produces the original handmade guitar on the high end guitar brand named Headway.  [Source: Mudcat forum]

CF Mountain Catalog

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Images eBay:

Mowry

2004 to present

"I believe I built my first numbered instrument in 1993, but I didn't start building full time until 2004. I build in my home shop in Bend, Oregon.

Dating Mowry guitars

All of my instruments have an interior label with the date. I keep a detailed record of all my instruments based on the serial number, so folks can contact me if they would like more information about a particular instrument." [Source: Andrew Mowry, email 21/7/2008]

Cambewarra West, New South Wales, Australia

Mozzani

Luigi Mozzani - harp guitars

http://www.harpguitars.net/iconography/icon-mozzani.htm

MP

Michael Payne Hand Crafted Guitars

Mr Glyn

Glyn Evans, luthier Auckland New Zealand.

http://www.guitarsmatrix.com/profiles/mrglyn.html

Mr Peters

Designed/made by Mr. Peters Guitar Mfg. in Santa Ana, California. Serial No. 107. This guitar has the rare Pat. 3,091,150 "Sceusa Neck", invented by Peter Sceusa in 1961 and patented in 1963. Other than this prototype guitar, there only a few Rickenbacker guitars known to have the Patent 3,091,150 neck.
 

Images ebay

MTD (Michael Tobias Design)

1994 to present

Luthier Michael Tobias started making Tobias bass guitars in the 1970s. In 1990 Gibson Guitar Corporation purchased Tobias and moved production to Nashville. Michael Tobias left the company in 1992 to found Michael Tobias Design (MTD) (hand made basses) in 1994.

Dating Tobias

Basses below the serial number 2044 were built in the California factory headed-up by Michael Tobias; serial numbers after that were produced by Gibson with a transition period in which Tobias worked with Gibson and continued to produce basses. [Source: wikipedia]

The first serial number was 0178 - January 1978. After 578, I went back to 179…All I got from:  http://www.mtdbass.com/

M Tone

M Tone guitars are hand made by Matt Proctor.

"I started making guitars under the brand name of M-tone in 2009. My main business is solid body electric guitars. I'm a one-man operation in Portland, Oregon, USA.
Dating M Tone guitars
The serial number includes the year and month of manufacture, and the number of the guitar itself. The first two digits are the month, the second two are the year and following the hyphen is the number of guitar in sequence. 0410-12 would mean the guitar was made in April 2010, and it's the 12th M-tone guitar ever made. I started using this numbering system in April 2010, so the earlier guitars are just numbered sequentially until that point with the date indicated. The serial number is written in the neck pocket and I also sign my name with the serial number." [Source: Matt Proctor, email 1/5/2010]

current

Robert Mazzullo was a cabinet maker before studying at Roberto-Venn in 1995. [Source: Roberto-Venn ]

Fritz Mueller

current

Makes 8 instruments  per year. British Columbia, Canada

Composite construction

Images courtesy Classic Guitar:

Muiderman Guitars

Kevin Muiderman (pronounced like “Spiderman”) is a guitar maker and guitar player currently living with his family on the plains of North Dakota.

Luthier interview

Dieter Muller

current

German builder.

Images courtesy Classic Guitar:

Mumbo Jumbo

Solid acoustic guitars from Camden, South Carolina, USA

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Alfred Muren

1946-1956

http://www.steinnes.net/gitar/index.html

Carlos Murillo

Image eBay:

Murph

1965-1967

February 1965 Murph Industries started producing guitars in San Fernando, California and filed for bankruptcy, April 1967. Murph guitars were built by Pat Murphy. [Source: Murph guitar tribute site]

Images eBay:

Murphy Shaw

1973-1977

Les Paul style guitars made by Tom Murphy and Tim Shaw formerly of Gibson. “There were about 107 of these made in total, from about 1973 to late ’76 or early ’77. The original partners were Patrick Murphy and me; by 1975, we’d added Chuck Burge, who later worked with me in R&D at Gibson, and a guy named Loring Janes. Our shop was over a music store in Kalamazoo called The Sound Factory, which later became Pro-Co Sound. The last plaque was put in the back of guitar #26, I think; after that, they were called Sunrise guitars.

“The earlier guitars, used Gibson components, but I rewound the pickups. Later on, we made the pickups entirely ourselves. The controls are master volume, master tone, a 5-way rotary (series, fingerboard pickup, parallel, bridge pickup, and series out-of-phase,) and two series/parallel switches. Bill Lawrence had been a consultant at Gibson in the early 1970’s, and I learned a lot about pickups and controls from him. The original tuners were Gotohs.

“By and large, we used Michigan maple, walnut, and cherry for the body woods. There was no big fire that drove us out of business; we weren’t very fast or very profitable, and it quietly sputtered out in 1977. I left and moved to California in January of that year.

“Most of these were sold direct; others were sold through a small network of music stores in the Midwest.”   [Source: My Les Paul ]

Images http://myworld.ebay.com/chainsawturnpaugh/ eBay:

Music Man / EVH

1972 to present

In 1971 Forrest White and Tom Walker from Fender formed a company named Tri-Sonic with Leo Fender. Because of a 10-year non-compete clause in the 1965 contract that sold the Fender companies to CBS, Leo Fender was a silent partner.

The name of this partnership was changed to Musitek, Inc. by 1973 and in January 1974 the final name, Music Man, appeared. In 1974, the company started producing its first product, an amplifer designed by Leo Fender and Tom Walker called the "Sixty Five" -  a hybrid of tube and solid state technology.  The number of designs rapidly increased. 15 of the 28 pages from 1976 catalogue were dedicated to amplification. In 1975, Fender's legal restriction had expired and after a vote of the board he was named the president of Music Man. [Source: wikipedia]

General info

http://www.wolfgangguitars.com/MusicManEVH.htm

http://home.swbell.net/mellis99/musicman.html

Dating Musicman guitars

https://store.bluebookinc.com/Info/PDF/EGuitar/ElectricSerialization.pdf

http://www.vintage-guitars.co.uk/serial.html#MUSIC

Music Man guitar ads

http://www.vintageguitars.org.uk/advertisements/music%20man

http://vintage.catalogs.free.fr/Index.htm

Reviews are at Harmony Central

see Ernie Ball

Headstock image left courtesy of Chris Rice, Rice Custom Guitars. Below 1976 Music Man Sting Ray bass head from ebay

Images 1979 date marks Music Man neck and body neck pocket eBay:

Musicvox

1996 to present

Korean made guitars.

Images eBay:

Musikalia

Musikalia is a manufacturer for Weissenborn-style Acoustic Hawaiians and folk instruments like Bouzoukis, Mandolins made in Sicily

Musima

Musima was a government owned music instrument company in the East German State (under the Soviets). Markneukirchen - home to the best German musical instrument makers for hundreds of years .

http://meatexz.com/cheesyguitars/guitars_germany.html

http://jazzgitarren.k-server.org/musima.html

http://www.vintaxe.com/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.pl?frames=no&board=vintaxe&mode=Cur&message=778

http://www.musikkeller.com/d/musima.html

Russian site http://sovietguitar.narod.ru/

Yngwie Malmsteen's first guitar  http://www.yngwie.org/news/Answers3.html

Deluxe 25 http://www.theguitarcollection.org.uk/gallery2/musima.html

Reviews are at Harmony Central

Image Musima Delux eBay:

Don Musser

1976 to present

Classical and flat top guitars made by Don Musser in Cotopaxi, Colorado

Reviews http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/brand/Musser

Mustapick

2003 to present

"Mustapick Guitars started in 2003. The best way to find out a year for one of my guitars is to call or email me." [Source: Matt, Mustapick Guitars, email 30/3/2008]

RS Muth

2004 to present

I started building guitars in 2004.

I make them in Hamilton, NY.

Dating RS Muth guitars

I have the month and year of completion on my label inside the guitar.  I also hand sign the inside of the soundboard with the date of the actual signature (not the completion date). [Source: Randy S Muth, email 23/7/2008]

Oren Myers

Oxfordshire, England

Images Kent Guitar Classic:

Myka Guitars

2003 to present

David Myka, handmade electrics, Seattle Washington, USA

Forum http://theguitarwall.com/forum/index.php?board=22.0