Jimi Hendrix’s Mosrite Joe Maphis 12/6 Doubleneck
This guitar was shown at the EMP (now MoPOP) museum in Seattle during a special Hendrix event. According to the museum’s info, Jimi purchased it at Manny’s Music shop in New York and used it for the recording of Spanish Castle Magic from the Axis: Bold as Love (1967) album.
Specs
As far as the specs, the guitar, obviously, has two necks – one with six strings, and the other with twelve. The pickups in it (if original) are single-coils, which usually measure up to 13K in output, which is very high compared to Fender pickups which measured around 6k Ohms on the models made in the early 60s.
Based on the photos, a lot of the hardware is now missing from the guitar, most notably both the original Mosrite Moseley tremolo and the Tune-o-Matic style bridge from the 12-string part of the body. The reason behind this is unknown.
Unfortunately, beyond what was stated by the EMP and what can be concluded from the photos, no other information seems to be available about the guitar.
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Dana Moseley (Semie’s daughter) tells how Jimi stopped by the Mosrite factory to order the guitar. She was just a little girl at the time.
I met Semie in the early 1970s as he was crossing through Missouri. He actually stopped at my dads church and played and sang. He told us, my family, of his guitars and that famous musicians played them. Because my dad being a preacher, he only mentioned Buck Owen’s of Hee Haw, not any Rock. When he came to our house, and saw my bedroom with Led Zeppelin and more artist on my turntable stack, he shared about Jimi. I was blown away.
The guitar did not have a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, but it had one that is similar.
Oh, you’re right! It seems to be one of these – https://reverb.com/item/25238191-mosrite-moseley-tremolo-system-the-ventures-model-1965-vintage . I will fix the error, thanks!
Do you know the serial number?. I saw 2J158
No idea, sorry. Did you see it in person?
No. It was in an article.