The reality TV show craze about hoarding
and people’s life-sheltering obsession with
stuff has overflowed into America’s consciousness
the past year. While the people shown in
these programs generally have a tragic or trigger
event that sparks the desire to keep anything
and everything—health and safety be
damned—musicians usually don’t need such
an incident. Since you read PG, you probably
suffer from some form of G.A.S. It’s not a
bad thing—just as long as you acknowledge
it. Broken tubes, disassembled guitars, and
scattered equipment is just part of our gearhead
syndrome. But sometimes, having that
extra piece of gear lying around foreshadows a
future acquisition, and for Terence Murphy, it
was an unknown guitar case.$0
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“I got this alligator case over 10 years ago
when it came with a vintage Tele, but the
case didn’t fit anything right,” says Murphy.
“Then I recently got this 1966 Mosrite Mark
XII from an antique dealer friend, who originally
bought the 12-string for five bucks.
And after reading a post on a Mosrite forum,
I found out how lucky I could be when I
learned that the original XII came with an
alligator case—it fits the one I had like a
glove.” Upon acquiring the vintage treat,
Murphy had his hands full with aesthetic
issues and functionality problems because it
had been stored in the rafters of a garage for
nearly 30 years—inside a broken case that
didn't shut. “There was mold covering the
entire guitar,” recalls Murphy. “The Klusons
were covered in rust and would not budge,
but the worst part was the rat gnaw on the
lower bout.” [You can see this on the horn
of the treble cutaway.] After carefully rubbing
out and polishing the finish, Murphy
removed all the rusty and damaged parts,
soaked them in light oil, and cleaned the
rosewood fretboard. Once he put everything
back together, the result was pleasantly
shocking. “I was surprised because it played
amazing without needing even the slightest
neck adjustment—this guitar was meant to
be played.”$0
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The revitalized Mosrite Mark XII model
featured here has a two-tone sunburst finish
on an alder body, boasting the “German
carve” perfected by Mosrite founder Semie
Moseley. The thin maple neck is topped
with a rosewood fretboard, and the 24.5"-
scale guitar still has the original hardware
(minus the rust) including the Klusons tuners
and Volume and Tone knobs. Murphy
describes the original Mosrite pickups
as having “a unique, jangly vibe with a
shimmering high-end quality to them.
It’s definitely not a metal guitar, but the
pickups still produce a very nice overall
tone when played through my old rackmounted
Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier and a
Trainwreck-inspired kit build.” (The Mark
II is leaning against the aforementioned
amps in the photo above.)$0
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A special thanks to Terence Murphy for the
opportunity to feature this fine instrument
and its story.
