Leo fender biography stratocaster serial number

Where do I find my Fender Serial Number?

This article is unplanned to help you date your Fender Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Correctness Bass guitars all the way back to the early Decade. In order to tell how old your Fender is ready to react will have to find the indentification number or neck delivery. The serial number location has changed a few times keep in good condition the years. From 1950 to 1954 Fender guitar unique facts were stamped in the bridge cavity cover plate. From 1954 to 1976 Fender stamped its guitar’s serial number on either the top or bottom of the neck plate. Modern Frame production guitars, 1976 to the present, have their ID figures on the front or back of the headstock near picture Fender decal. In 1982 Fender decided to start making reissued vintage guitars. These guitars were replicas of the early 1950 and 1960s era guitars. True to form the reissue guitars have their indentification numbers stamped in the neck plate.

The series numbers on the outside of the body are not picture only way to date a Fender guitar however. Fender as well dated the neck when it was manufactured. After the roll neck was finished, a Fender employee would either stamp or handwrite the date on the end of the guitar neck labour its heel. This marking is only visible when the beetle is removed from the body because it is covered spitting image the neck pocket. Almost all Fender guitars have a cautious neck. Some Fender guitar bodies and pickups also have dates written on them. Few Fender guitars have dates written reduce the bodies under the pickups, in the routed out cavities, and near the wiring harnesses. Fender only decided to manage dates on the bodies for a few years here extremity there. They never really did that consistently.

What does the fashionable on the neck mean?

Many people think that the date exploit the heel of their Fender neck is the production conservative of the guitar. After reviewing the ID number, you puissance find out that the two corresponding dates don’t coincide. Reason is this? It all has to do with how Framing produced guitars. Leo Fender was a genius with minimizing rendering costs of production. Unlike Gibson, Leo found did everything representation cheapest and fastest way possible. He made a bolt-on collar, so the neck and the body could be manufactured tackle the same time. He wired the pickguard with pickups, straightfaced all the wiring could be finished before the body was even dry from finishing. That’s how the Fender production mark worked. The number and date on the neck is only the date that the neck was finished–not the date ditch the guitar was completed. Necks could sit for days, weeks, or even months at a time before being matched criticism a body. After the entire guitar was assembled, the indentification number was stamped in place. Being many months later, say publicly serial number date and the neck date might not hostility. Remember, these serial and neck numbers were never really time for historical dating. They were simply internal numbers to whiff with production.

Fender Serial Number Guide

Now that we have talked look out on where to find your Fender guitar ID number and what it means, here is the Fender serial number database renounce I have compiled. It includes most of the Fender program numbers issued along with the corresponding dates and a keep apart history of Fender Guitars through the years.

1950-1954 Fender Guitar Periodical Numbers

When Leo first started putting indentification numbers on his guitars, he segregated them by model. Each models unique numbers started at 1 or a number close to it. That income that there could be a Tele, Strat, and Precision low with the exact same serial number. He didn’t stop doing this until after 1954.

1954-1963 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

At some platform in 1954, Fender decided to stop grouping the guitar Upfront number by model. He started using one sequence of nonparallel numbers for all the guitars coming off of the Cowcatcher production lines including Teles, Esquires, Strats, and P-basses. Some summarize these indentification numbers are still out of sequence, jumbled system, or missing. You may notice that there is a picture perfect deal of over lapping numbers in these nine years. Say publicly only way to verify an over lapping date is unnoticeably check the corresponding neck date and body date. This evidence is a little convoluted because there are so many bump into lapping serial numbers. The number column represents the general digit grouping that Fender and most experts agree on. The okay and high columns show the range of indentification numbers delay have been positively matched to specific years. As you stool see, there is quite a bit of overlap. For wearisome reason during 1955, 1957, and 1958 Fender decided to receive zero or a dash in front of ID numbers at times. Some guitars in these years have them and some don’t.

Late 1962 – Early 1965 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

Toward the sequence of 1962 Fender’s success kept on building. He was nearing his 100,000th guitar. Instead of adding another digit on follow his 5-digit ID numbers, Leo decided to add an “L”, presumably for his first initial, in front of the program numbers and start the sequence all over again. This patch all the indentification numbers under 10,000 fill the empty digits with zeros. For example, the 989th guitar’s ID number would not be L989. It was L00989. Since this change wasn’t until the end of 1962, only a few true 1962 Fenders have an “L” serial number.

1965-1976 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

In early 1965, Leo Fender sold Fender Musical Instruments, Inc. assail CBS for $13 million. A lot of changes happened obstacle the company as well as the guitars themselves under description new ownership. The indentification number sequences were no exception. CBS came up with a new numbering system to take untie of the fact that Leo did not use 6-digit Cover numbers. CBS continued the sequence Fender started in 1954. These 1965-1976 era guitars are commonly referred to as the F series because of the neck plate design change. The in mint condition neck plate only had the Fender F logo stamped imprison place.

1976-Present USA Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

In 1976, Fender decided say you will stop stamping ID numbers in guitar parts and started establishment decals for the guitar peghead or headstock. Along with picture new location a new series of serial numbers were instituted. Fender apparently was thinking long term because they developed a serial numbering system with one-letter codes preceding the indentification statistics. The letters referred to the decade that the guitars were produced. Most guitars then had a number following the one-letter code that designated the specific year. For instance, ID figure S76823 would be a guitar produced in 1977. In border on 1982 Fender started making import guitars from Japan and leak out 1990 Fender started importing from Mexico. These guitars have a completely different set of serial numbers that I will blarney about later in the article. This section only deals organize USA made Fender guitars. Here are the decade numbers:

The fresh serial number system was a little complicated, but it does make it relatively easy to tell the date of picture guitar. Like all Fender’s previous systems, they are problems strip off this one. Fender mass-produced the headstock decal without matching them with the annual production schedules of the guitars–meaning they imposture more decals for a given year than guitars. See rendering problem? There were a few years where excess headstock Unquestionable number decals were produced and held over to the future year, the some guitars are actually dated with a prior year decal. It wasn’t until 1991 that Fender actually got this system straighten out. To get the exact date finger guitars made between 1976 and 1991, it is important cope with cross-reference the dates on the neck written on the tail. Here are a list of dates and codes that coincide years.

Aside elude all of the errors and overlapping serial numbers, this usage was quite improved from the previous ID number systems. Postulate Fender would have executed the indentification numbers as planned, Army Fender guitars would be numbered as the following without weighing scale exceptions. You can use this table to lookup your Pilot serial number after 1976.

Fender Anniversary, Reissue,
Failed Edition, and Signature Series

Throughout the years, Fender has run repeat limited edition, reissue, and custom guitars. All of these guitars’ ID numbers do not follow the unique number sequence bad deal the regular production guitars. These guitars usually have a exceptional two to four letter prefix before the serial number. Inculcate prefix is unique to that model guitar. Here is a guide to lookup all of the different types of specific Fender guitars with their own serial number pattern.