A few pics from this weekend's clean up and set up...
Neck pocket. Date stamp has mostly been lost to time but you can just barely make out "11" or maybe "14" and 1966"
Neck heel is crystal clear though. The "0005" stamp, to the best of my knowledge, means it was the 5th neck made that day. I don't know why Mr Moseley used 4-digit body and neck stamp numbers because there's no way he was hand making 1000 bodies and necks in one day. But whatever. The body and neck are 1966. I've also read that the bodies and necks were stamped together at assembly, so maybe the body stamp would say 0005 too if it wasn't worn away.
The pots seem to be original. This volume pot dates to the 47th week of 1966. I couldn't get a good pic of the tone pot, but it dates to the 51st week of 1966. I had to clean a layer of powdery corrosion off of everything and clean/lube the pots, but they work just fine. The jack and all the solder connections/wiring seem to be untouched. So unless these pots were changed later in the same year the bass was built, it's a very late 66...probably among the very last basses or guitars made by Mosrite that year. I don't know about the shielding though. I don't know who did that or when.
The "M" knobs.
Neck stamp serial number. This number doesn't really mean too much as far as I know in Mosrite world. The number itself doesn't follow any rhyme or reason that I know of. They're seemingly pretty random, but the number does put the guitars into a year range. I need to research that more. The body/neck stamps are far more significant, but this is the neck pickup and serial number.
The bridge and tailpiece. The bridge saddles are simply little dowels of brass slotted to accept the strings. Very crude, very simple. The tailpiece, by contrast, is a gorgeous little piece of rosewood bound to a chrome backing plate.
Microdots, microfrets.
Zero nut, string guide, big beautiful headstock, duckfoot tuners. I put some very light Rotosounds on it.
Ready to thump
