I will also mention briefly pot-codes as a resource (numbers on the internal potentiometers of the guitar). If you're not comfortable removing the neck of a guitar to peek at the date marker, I encourage you to take it to a local tech or luthier. Here is what the neck date and body date look like from a 1952 Telecaster: These dates will tell when the original part was manufactured, but are not exact indicators of when the guitar was actually put together and finished. Through much of Fender's production history, Fender workers would print or write a production date on both bodies and necks where the two pieces meet. Learn everything you need to know to choose the right Stratocaster for you. For Fender during the turning point era of the mid-'60s, check out Fender and the CBS Takeover. Similarly, take a look at Behold the Jazzmaster for general timeline of the history of everyone's favorite offset guitar. There's A Brief History of the Stratocaster Part I and Part II that follows the evolution of the most popular Fender guitar of all. We also have some other blog posts related to Fender that can hopefully be of some help. Some browsing around the Fender section of the Price Guide can definitely help you find which model you have.
This can be a tall order for someone less versed in guitar history, but we do have some resources here on Reverb to help you out.įor starters, there's the Reverb Price Guide which has thousands of entries with pictures and details on various guitars and other gear.
Perhaps the best place to start when dating your Fender is to get an approximate idea of the era based on the instrument's design and components. Once you have the information you need, if you're interested in selling your Fender, you can use Reverb to get it in front of the largest audience of musicians in the world by clicking on this link. Instead, the best approach to dating a Fender is to combine indicators from the design of the instrument, the dates found on the neck and body, along with the serial number. This also means that various parts used on a particular guitar may have come from different points in time, so no single number can absolutely define when the instrument was built. Features like bolt-on necks and pickups wired into the pickguard all helped the Fender factory churn out guitar after guitar, day after day. His guitars were built en masse by an entire factory, not a single luthier toiling over one instrument at a time. Like Henry Ford, part of Leo Fender's genius was in optimizing the company's production efficiency. Note: A new Japanese vendor was enlisted in 2010 to help meet demand for the Geddy Lee and Marcus Miller Jazz Bass models.The most important thing to keep in mind when dating a Fender is the highly modular nature of the designs. This was a running change, and both “Made in Japan” and “Crafted in Japan” decals appear on instruments from 20. Crafted in Japan A + 6 digitsĢ007 was another transitional year for Japanese-made Fender instruments, with the return to the “Made in Japan” country-of-origin identifier on the serial number decal. In 1997, Fender transitioned to a serial number decal that included the words “Crafted in Japan” above the serial number.
#Fender guitar serial number dating serial numbers
As always, serial numbers should only be used as a guide for dating and should be used in combination with known age-related specifications to help identify the production year of an instrument. Records on early Japanese-made Fender instruments are not complete and are therefore not completely definitive for dating purposes. I don't know how that Asher T Deluxe got in the picture but you can guess how it became part of my collection. What does that mean? When were they made? The good folks at Fender compiled a list to guide us in the general build dates of these cool instruments. That is the third Orange Tabby I have lived with named Sherman and anyone who has ever talked to me about guitars quickly learns that I have a collection of red "E series" Made in Japan Fender Telecasters.
Take a look at the picture taken in my sauna and you will notice I am a creature of habit.
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