Vintage 1969/1970 Smith Rosac Melobar Guitar With HSC

There's a long & storied history of the Melobar, as recently featured in Vintage Guitar magazine (February '22 issue).  It's way too long to include here, but we'd encourage anyone that's interested to check it out on their website - it's a great read.  Here's the the very condensed version:

In the mid 1950's Walt Smith, a rancher in California, developed the idea for a steel guitar that could be played standing upright.  He actualapped ideas with Leo Fender and others, and by the mid 1960's, he had developed a working instrument.  Smith took the idea to the Mosrite company, who agreed to build the Melobar in it's factory.  Some of the prototypes made their way to Los Angeles and San Francisco, and into the hands of bands such as the Grateful Dead, the Mamas and Papas, and Jefferson Airplane, who used it on a couple of albums.  Even Brian Jones and Jimmy Page made use of one.  Interestingly, a chance encounter with Pat Boone resulted in an endorsement project with him, and it started to gain notoriety.

In early 1969, the Mosrite factory suddenly shut down due to financial issues within the company.  Only 300 Melobars had been made.  Smith wasn't ready to give up, so he and a team of Mosrite employees just shifted product to the Rosac Electronics & Manufacturing company.  That's where this particular one was made.  Only 300 were made by Rosac, from 1969 to 1970.  By the end of that year, Smith left California for Idaho, beginning a new era for Melobar.   It's the Rosac versions that are the most iconic and sought after, and this one in particular is a great example of the work that they did.