1965 Mory Jazzmaster

[sonoflee]

Hey, I've got one of those - I bought mine on OSG a few years back. Mine is also pretty dang close to an actual JM, with a more fender-like tremolo system. The only upgrade I've done is to install a mustang bridge, which works great. Here's a pic from the seller:




Is the neck on yours comparable to a fender? Mine is normal further up, but has a pretty slim profile toward the headstock.

Let me know if you'd like more pics, and thanks for posting.

[sleepkid]

I'd imagine the coil without the baseplate and extra magnets might sound more standard and "Fender-y"-

I wouldn't think so, as they are 9.92k and 10k single coils. Fender never made single coils that hot back in the 60's. At least, not that I know of.

I'm gonna run the risk of sounding like an internet dick here, but put both of these back to original immediately!

The Mory was so far removed from original state when I got it, that I don't feel bad about altering it at all. Missing the original pickguard (which is a slightly different shape), the tailpiece cover, the original tuners, the original bridge, the pickups had been rewound, original rocker switches gone, etc. etc. Sadly, putting it back to it's original state isn't ever going to happen.

The list of issues you have with the second guitar is pretty low level stuff. Stick some quality tuners and some new screws in there, maybe a bit of a fret level. Who cares if it's made of ply.

Plywood has come a long way since the 60's, and while some of the newer guitars made of ply are quite durable and sound. . . ok. . . some of the stuff turned out back in the 60's is of questionable value for instrument making. But instruments got made. The mystery guitar isn't as bad as some I've seen, but it's not as good as a solid, or 2 or 3 piece body.

Stick some quality tuners ... in there

Wait, I thought you said keep it in it's original state?

Not a fan of 'partscasters' if it involves taking 'way rarer than fender' 50 year old guitars to bits. I think people often underestimate how rare some of this stuff is. Fender made thousands and thousands of Teles, Strats, Jazzmasters etc- sometimes with stuff like this, it was a one of run of 100 or so. 50 years down the line, there are so few of them left, it's (imnsho) a bit of a crime to part them out.

It's a question of relative value. If the mystery guitar was worth the same as a 1962 (it's approximate age) Jazzmaster or something, then yeah, I probably wouldn't part it out, and I'd sell it. (because that's what I do: repair guitars and sell them) But it's not. It's an incredibly obscure guitar, but not a particularly valuable one. The pickups in the guitar are worth more to me than the resale value of the guitar (realistically, what would you pay for that guitar if I got it to it's maximum playing potential in it's original state?). I liked how they sounded, but not in that guitar, and I wasn't particularly enamoured of how that guitar played. The Mory, on the other hand, is an excellent sounding and playing guitar, but had pickups that had been rewound in a poor manner - now I have a completely unique guitar - only one in the world - but it's real value to me lies in how it plays.

Different strokes for different folks.

[sleepkid]

Hey, I've got one of those - I bought mine on OSG a few years back. Mine is also pretty dang close to an actual JM, with a more fender-like tremolo system. The only upgrade I've done is to install a mustang bridge, which works great. Here's a pic from the seller:




Is the neck on yours comparable to a fender? Mine is normal further up, but has a pretty slim profile toward the headstock.

Let me know if you'd like more pics, and thanks for posting.

...and yes! Awesome! Is that the one bought from Gonkulator?

You have the later tremolo system, so maybe 1966 or 1967.

I have a 1959 Jazzmaster, which has a very slim profile neck already. The neck on the Mory feels like my Jazzmaster, but the headstock is ever so slightly thicker. We're talking maybe 2mm at most.

I was hoping you would find this thread. I think just about everything else on your guitar is original (though I can't see the back of the tuners). Do you happen to know what the resistance of your pickups is?

...and yes, pictures please.

I think there is one other Mory owner somewhere here on OSG.

[mgeek]

It's a question of relative value. If the mystery guitar was worth the same as a 1962 (it's approximate age) Jazzmaster or something, then yeah, I probably wouldn't part it out, and I'd sell it. (because that's what I do: repair guitars and sell them) But it's not. It's an incredibly obscure guitar, but not a particularly valuable one. The pickups in the guitar are worth more to me than the resale value of the guitar (realistically, what would you pay for that guitar if I got it to it's maximum playing potential in it's original state?).

I dunno, the cool japanese models don't really show up in the UK- not trying to get on your back but I believe in kinds of value other than financial...

Don't get me wrong- i repair guitars too, and if say, it's got skinny lifting frets and basically sucks, I'm happy to improve it. Currently in the process of re fretboarding a forties archtop that was fretted by a drunk and basically unusable, maybe thats why i see "potential" in that cool shaped unknown.

[sonoflee]

...and yes! Awesome! Is that the one bought from Gonkulator?
...

I was hoping you would find this thread. I think just about everything else on your guitar is original (though I can't see the back of the tuners). Do you happen to know what the resistance of your pickups is?

I think it did come from Gonkulator... man, I really love my Mory. Don't know the pickup resistance offhand, but I'll measure it next time I open it up.

Here are some more pics (click thumbnail for album):

[sleepkid]

I dunno, the cool japanese models don't really show up in the UK-

Let me know what you're looking for. I am a luthier who lives and works in Japan trying to make a living by restoring and exporting vintage Japanese guitars to players and collectors. I locate specific models for people all the time. I've shipped a few to the UK. I also don't overcharge for shipping (like most of the sellers on Ebay do).

not trying to get on your back but I believe in kinds of value other than financial...

So do I. Which is why I sacrificed the potential financial value of that guitar, and took the above average pickups out of the slightly less than average (at it's best) guitar and installed them into a guitar with much better playability. I had been thinking about moving those pickups into a better guitar, and when the Mory came along, it was perfect.

I think it did come from Gonkulator... man, I really love my Mory. Don't know the pickup resistance offhand, but I'll measure it next time I open it up.

Here are some more pics (click thumbnail for album):

That is a really good looking guitar. I notice a few things: they had moved to a full copy of the Jazzmaster neck, as they no longer have a terminating nut, but a nut installed within the fretboard itself a la Fender. Yours has a different string tree than mine, though not sure if that was replaced. Probably not though, as yours seems 100% original. I really like the aesthetic of that tremolo plate. After seeing that, the regular Jazzmaster one seems to big and flat.

Based on the neck, I'd guess that yours was one of the last ones in the Mory evolution. Probably 1967.

By the way, you don't have to open your guitar up to measure the pickup resistance. Just plug in a cable, and then take the probes of your multimeter, and on the end of the cable, touch one probe to the ground shaft, and one to the very tip. It adds a small amount of resistance due to the length of the cable itself, but it's negligible and will give us a pretty good idea of the resistance of the pickups (using the selector switch to measure each in turn). No need to open it up.

[sonoflee]

Tried to measure the DCR that way, but somehow got about 16 - 17k for each pickup (vol/tone all the way up), which doesn't seem possible... will investigate later.

[sleepkid]

Tried to measure the DCR that way, but somehow got about 16 - 17k for each pickup (vol/tone all the way up), which doesn't seem possible... will investigate later.

There may be a resistor wired across a leg of the tone pot, or in some other area of the circuit. This is common on some of the older Japanese guitars. It can just wait until the next time you change strings or something and decide to open it up. But if you do open it up, please take pictures as well so we can see the original wiring setup for the guitar.

Thanks again!

[sleepkid]

So, I finally came across another Mory Jazzmaster. A 1966. This one in just about as rough shape as the first - namely it's missing it's neck (but has a Fresher Straighter "Protean Series" neck. Love the names on these things. Also says "Concord Body") - but the body and all the parts are all original:



Pickguard is a great looking kind of Burnt Umber Grey Pearloid swirl. These extend further back towards the tailpiece than a typical Jazzmaster pickguard.



Was very excited to see the orignal electronics (the 65 at the start of this thread has the original body and neck, and possibly the original pickups, but the wiring and pickguard were obviously redone when I got it, which is why I felt free to modify it further) - but here is what's under the hood on this guitar:



All the pots were made by Cosmos (a supplier for many guitar companies back in 60's Japan, and it still exists today) Massively large 500k B Curve volume pot, and then a 1M tone control pot of normal size. The lead out from the upper plate to the volume pot runs through a 1k and a 100pf resistor which are wired together in parallel (which is why sonoflee couldn't accurately measure the pickups from the jack) The mini pots in the upper plate are 1000k (why not just 1M?) for the volume, and then 50k for the tone. .02mf ceramic disc for the upper plate tone control, .03mf ceramic disc for the lower tone control.

The 65 Mory bobbins were almost dead on like the original Jazzmasters - if they themselves are original, but these have grey plastic bobbins. Pickups measure 8.76k for the neck, 8.33k for the bridge. Looks like 42awg enamel. Sounded good before I started to take the guitar apart.

The volume pot is marked March of 1966. This is probably a good indication of when the guitar was made, and shows how quickly they transitioned from the door hinge tremolo tailpiece, to the Jazzmaster style tremolo. Mory first came into being in October of 1965, the guitar at the start of this thread has a pencil date of December 1965, and then this guitar is roughly March of 66. Mory ceased as a brand sometime in 1967.

I'm not entirely sure what colour this guitar is supposed to be:



There is some evidence of red in both the neck pocket and the pickup cavity. On top of that is a kind of unattractive ochre yellow. Then we have the white which was clearly sprayed on by taping over the pickguard (the very bottom edge of the pickguard is tagged a little). The cavities in these guitars are fully shielded, and these have been sprayed right over the shielding. Then there are some chip outs on the edges of the body which show black, then red, then yellow, up to the white top coat. Removing a little paint between the pickup cavities, it's just yellow to the wood. Underneath the shielding it's just wood. Really hard to know what to make of it. The colours on the edges (black, red, yellow) suggest a sunburst, but in the wrong order, and the colours are opaque. The white colour and the pickguard match an example of this guitar in the Rittor "Bizarre Guitars" book - but then why all the other paint? And why was the pickguard masked off? Hard to imagine that the pickguard and the yellow go together. (edit: There is also yellow paint on the endpins, so the yellow is not original. Black? Red? Black and that pickguard might look very sweet.)

It is a mystery. Not really sure what to do with it in regards to it's colour. The white is fairly well done, and it's aged nicely with the appropriate lacquer cracks and all, but it also has one or two slightly noticeable drip marks, and the area around the tremolo has cracked away quite a bit, revealing the multiple layers of paint there.

...anyway, thanks for reading and sharing in my Mory obsession. It's still the finest Jazzmaster copy I have ever played, though a friend of mine has recently scored an early 80's Greco JM-700, and I am hoping we can get together for a shootout of my 59 Jazzmaster, the 65 or 66 Mory (actually should put them together to make one completely original Mory just for the shootout), and then the Greco. That would be something.

[muffonrat]

Hey sleepkid nice review,very interesting as these models are very rare and hard to find.How do the pick ups sound?Would you describe them as being close to your vintage 59 or to the modern japanese reissues?A shootout between the 3 guitars (59,mory and the greco)would be awesome!thanks.

[HorseyBoy]

Oh, man! I want to see the Greco JM-700 now. I've got an 81 SE-700 (Super Real Strat) that's a beautifully-made guitar. I'm guessing a Jazzy from the same era would be equally good.

[sleepkid]

Hey sleepkid nice review,very interesting as these models are very rare and hard to find.How do the pick ups sound?Would you describe them as being close to your vintage 59 or to the modern japanese reissues?A shootout between the 3 guitars (59,mory and the greco)would be awesome!thanks.

I would say that they were closer to my vintage in terms of sound, but I only gave them a quick run through with the rusty strings that were on the guitar before starting to take the thing apart, so a further and more detailed review will have to happen later. I have so many guitars in my workshop right now that I'm not sure when I will come back around to this one, but hopefully soon.

Oh, man! I want to see the Greco JM-700 now. I've got an 81 SE-700 (Super Real Strat) that's a beautifully-made guitar. I'm guessing a Jazzy from the same era would be equally good.

They are super rare. However, they also seem to be the most accurate out of all Jazzmaster copies. I'm hoping the guy brings it by soon. In which case, I guess I should get the Mory ready sooner rather than later. Hmmm...

[sleepkid]

Forum member UC3 asked me for some pics of the second generation tailpiece. Thought I'd share them here.

Haven't cleaned it yet:


Same basic principal as the Jazzmaster, but a little cruder execution:


Interesting that they welded a rod across there - it seems to serve no function at all, as there is another bar underneath the plate to prevent the plate from coming up too far. Looks like maybe it was part of an original design, then they decided to go the other way, but had already made these pieces like that.


I believe sonoflee has one of the last models of this guitar, so would be interesting to see his as well, and if that rod is still there.

A standard metric sized Jazzmaster arm fits this. The original arms look to be a little longer in pictures.

[Ursa Minor]

Really interesting. The collet and spring look identical.

[sonoflee]

Really cool! I will try to do a disassembly & take pics of mine (including trem) in the next few weeks.