I have an acoustic guitar that I have been trying to look up using the serial number to find its age but I haven't had any luck. If anyone knows how to age a guitar I would greatly appreciate it. Just chime in and I'll provide the info.
Alot of guitars pre 1970 used a standard number, and batch, that can be used to age the guitar for example a gibson es-330 with the serial number (fiction serial number for example sake) 605950 would be from 1969-ish in the early 70's gibson, was a bit haywire, but had a leveled out system from 75 to 77, then went to the standard serialization they use today the first and fourth numbers indicate the year ie 74867323 would be made in kalamazoo Mi, in 1977, and was the 323rd guitar made that day. most companies have some similiar system in place
fenders are kinda strange, sometimes you'll get overlaps in serial numbers, neck from 03 body from 04 type stuff... kinda makes precise dating difficult, however, you can get close...
the body is the go to source for fenders. the serial numbers are stamped in the neck joint, its pretty easy to tell if a guitar has had its neck removed. and generally if it has, the neck is more than likely non original. that said, there is a way to match the years on the bodies and necks, it just escapes me at the moment fenders that have numbers matching guitar necks are pretty uncommon from what i remember
ya, pretty much no such thing as 'matching numbers' on a fender... unless its a fake... as a perfect example, my 04 50th anniversary strat has an 03 neck on it... not uncommon at all for fenders... with rare exception, there are only a few factory fender necks anyway... 3 different radius' (7.5, 9, and 12), a few contours, and maple or rosewood boards (except the pao ferro SRV model), and nitro or urethane finish... I am of course excluding the Custom Shop models...
v, c and u neck contours, any fender with a seperate fretboard, will be post 1953, the used to just stamp or write the date on the necks, i forget when they went to a serial system i think sometime in the 70's?
Well my searchings have still failed. I contacted Fender today and they said that their records did not go back far enough so I emailed the guys at Elderly Instruments and Gruhn Guitars to see if they can help. Here is the info on the guitar: Fender Alexus 30 Serial #: 9108000485 Made in Korea
how old do you ~think~ it is?? ball park estimate?? 60's? 70's? the guys at Gruhn know their sh-tuff about vintage guit-fiddles, if they can't tell ya likely not many other will be able to either...
Gruhn emailed me back and said they did not deal with foriegn mad Fenders so they had no information to give me. My guess is that it is 20-25 years old. I would just like to know for sure. The only reason this has gotten my curiosity up so much is becasue I tried to resesarch the guitar and I could VERY little info on it. Actually, all I found was other people asking for info about it.
Here's the response I got from Elderly Instruments: "Will, These guitars were built for Fender, in Korea, in the early 90's. Hope this helps." ............thanks alot
I have a few fenders still, some of my best are my made in japan models. Some of my fav guitars of all time are the first called (law suit guitars) from the 80's Here is why gibson and fender were so pissed... the sg is made by blobal and has the bookmark headstock like it's gibson counterpart
seriously, L2D, you should check out the 2004 Custom Shop 50th Anniv 1954 Strat... it was built to the exact specs of the original, even the pickups were wound by the same person who did it in 1954 (Abigail Ybarro)... it is the modern strat measuring stick imho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0fGnm88nm0
i hav eprobably played one at some point or another. i worked in a guitar shop for a while. cool job, spent more than i made lol
