Allen MOS-1

[AZ_Organ]

I live in Mesa, AZ and have been looking for a practice instrument. An Allen 183-c popped up in the classifieds on this forum pretty close to where I live. It's an older 70's MOS-1 I think, but maybe it still has some life in it. The seller mentioned that a few stop tabs have issues and don't sound, but maybe that can be fixed. It does have internal speakers. Is the $400 asking price reasonable?

[jbird604]

Probably. Though such organs are sometimes "free for the taking," if it's clean and mostly working, you wouldn't be hurting yourself to pay a little for it. The tabs that don't work are likely just a bit dirty on the delicate little leaf switches. Open it up, look at the stop tabs from the rear, and you will see how the stops are switched on -- little narrow leaves of metal that must come together and make electrical contact when the tab is pressed down. The metal tends to collect corrosion or some kind of gunk from the atmosphere. Cleaning the metal contact surfaces with alcohol on a Q-tip may well restore the operation of the affected stops.

That's a pretty simple and basic MOS organ. Not terribly exciting by modern standards, but quite decent. Simple as it is, there are no batteries inside, so nothing to worry about except routine cleaning and the general maintenance that older organs need, such as lubing up the points of electrical contact within the system, exercising pots wherever they are found. If you find that you have poor sound or operating problems, you can find some good advice on the forum about doing a general cleanup of a MOS organ.

Best of luck! Post with your experiences and stay in touch with the good organ fans here!