Post by Tony Ravenscroft on Aug 13, 2018 10:32:55 GMT -6
If you have a number you want to look up, I won't delay you: the best place to check is the Fender page of the Guitar Dater Project. They cover almost all Fender-branded guitars, but not low-end offshoots (Squier, Starcaster, etc.).
Leo Fender was quirky, but meticulous, yet even he didn't have much of a system. He hand-built PA amplifiers in the late 1930s and started making electrified lapsteels in 1945 but the earliest known serial numbers arrived with the Esquire/Tele in 1950... sometimes with a three- AND a four-digit system being used at the same time.
Really, there's no Magic Decoder Ring gonna find secret wisdom in THAT.
It wasn't until halfway through 1954 that the Fender numbering system stabilized, AND it was "universal" meaning that the same numeric sequence was applied to ALL Fender instruments. (Even then there are apparent inconsistencies.>0) This was used to 1963. It ran to about 99999, beginning at 0001 -- actually _0001. In attempting to add another digit in 1963, someone used an "L" instead of a "1"; rather than having to go back and fix a bunch of errors, Fender chose to run with it and produced L-prefix numbers through 1965. Under new ownership, Fender went the next decade with a system that ran from 100000 to 750000.
Notice: these are all serial numbers -- no Hidden Wisdom at all. Twenty-five years and more than a half-million instruments.
Mid-1976, Fender introduced a new scheme, where the first character -- a capital letter -- actually DID indicate decade, and the next digit the year. The letters are S ('70s), E ('80s), N ('90s), and Z ('00s). This was replaced in 2010 with a "US" prefix followed by a two-digit year code. The single-letter system, though, remains in use with the Mexico-made guitars, where Z was followed by X ('10s), so a guitar made there in 2018 would begin with MX8-.
________________
All of that is hunky-dory... except, again, THERE IS NO SECRET CODE.
Most guitar owners who want the Real Truth about their instrument will have no idea who Zach Fjestad is, which explains a lot. Fjestad writes a column for Premier Guitar, which is THE magazine/site for people who care about gear old & new. Fjestad is also the obsessive guy behind the Blue Book of Guitar Values books & website, which has for years been THE place to begin researching instruments.
A couple of years ago, Fjestad responded to a reader with a Fender Stratocaster, serial number MN6xxxxx, & wanted to determine which model it is.
Trash or Treasure? (09/30/2016)
I discovered this the hard way with Squier, the Fender sub-brand. There might be three or four or even more "series" of guitars being made at any given moment. At one time, Squier simultaneously produced the Classic Vibe, Vintage Modified, Deluxe, Standard, Affinity, & Bullet serieses. Fortunately, most are made by different contractors in various nations, so they have their own numbering systems.
But all California-made guitars use ONE serial numbering system between them... and the Mexico guitars likewise use ONE of their own.
That MN6 guitar, sight unseen -- think of how many people show up with a serial number and no photos, right? -- might have been a Traditional, a Standard, a Tex-Mex, or a Richie Sambora Signature; that's hundreds of dollars in difference (not to mention the quality swing) yet the numbers are all sorta mashed together. Fjestad figures it out by color, hardware, and deduction.
Leo Fender was quirky, but meticulous, yet even he didn't have much of a system. He hand-built PA amplifiers in the late 1930s and started making electrified lapsteels in 1945 but the earliest known serial numbers arrived with the Esquire/Tele in 1950... sometimes with a three- AND a four-digit system being used at the same time.
Really, there's no Magic Decoder Ring gonna find secret wisdom in THAT.
It wasn't until halfway through 1954 that the Fender numbering system stabilized, AND it was "universal" meaning that the same numeric sequence was applied to ALL Fender instruments. (Even then there are apparent inconsistencies.>0) This was used to 1963. It ran to about 99999, beginning at 0001 -- actually _0001. In attempting to add another digit in 1963, someone used an "L" instead of a "1"; rather than having to go back and fix a bunch of errors, Fender chose to run with it and produced L-prefix numbers through 1965. Under new ownership, Fender went the next decade with a system that ran from 100000 to 750000.
Notice: these are all serial numbers -- no Hidden Wisdom at all. Twenty-five years and more than a half-million instruments.
Mid-1976, Fender introduced a new scheme, where the first character -- a capital letter -- actually DID indicate decade, and the next digit the year. The letters are S ('70s), E ('80s), N ('90s), and Z ('00s). This was replaced in 2010 with a "US" prefix followed by a two-digit year code. The single-letter system, though, remains in use with the Mexico-made guitars, where Z was followed by X ('10s), so a guitar made there in 2018 would begin with MX8-.
________________
All of that is hunky-dory... except, again, THERE IS NO SECRET CODE.
Most guitar owners who want the Real Truth about their instrument will have no idea who Zach Fjestad is, which explains a lot. Fjestad writes a column for Premier Guitar, which is THE magazine/site for people who care about gear old & new. Fjestad is also the obsessive guy behind the Blue Book of Guitar Values books & website, which has for years been THE place to begin researching instruments.
A couple of years ago, Fjestad responded to a reader with a Fender Stratocaster, serial number MN6xxxxx, & wanted to determine which model it is.
Trash or Treasure? (09/30/2016)
I discovered this the hard way with Squier, the Fender sub-brand. There might be three or four or even more "series" of guitars being made at any given moment. At one time, Squier simultaneously produced the Classic Vibe, Vintage Modified, Deluxe, Standard, Affinity, & Bullet serieses. Fortunately, most are made by different contractors in various nations, so they have their own numbering systems.
But all California-made guitars use ONE serial numbering system between them... and the Mexico guitars likewise use ONE of their own.
That MN6 guitar, sight unseen -- think of how many people show up with a serial number and no photos, right? -- might have been a Traditional, a Standard, a Tex-Mex, or a Richie Sambora Signature; that's hundreds of dollars in difference (not to mention the quality swing) yet the numbers are all sorta mashed together. Fjestad figures it out by color, hardware, and deduction.