#Fender serial number serial numbers
#Fender serial number serial number

#Fender serial number serial number

Here are the rough serial number ranges for the early Esquires and Telecasters:Īmerican-made signature series instruments follow a very similar scheme to the above, but use a prefix S before the decade letter. In this early period, the serial number can be found on the bridge of the instrument (see image).

Esquires, Broadcasters and Telecasters shared a serial number sequence, while the landmark Precision Bass had its own system.

#Fender serial number serial numbers

In the early years, Fender serial numbers schemes were specific to the model.

Serial number starts with a letter followed by six or seven digits, 1976 - present.

Big F on the neckplate with a six digit serial, 1965 - 1976.

Serial number on neckplate starts with an L, 1963 - 1965.

Four or five digit serial number on the neck plate with no letters, 1954 - 1963.

Four digit serial number on the bridge, 1950 - 1954.There are certainly plenty of exceptions, so again, using serial numbers in conjunction with other dating methods is always the best bet.Ĭlick on the links here to jump directly to the serial number style that matches your instrument: Below we'll go into detail about the various serial number schemes employed by Fender as far back as 1950. At many points in Fender's history, serial number usage overlapped again owing to the modular manner of production. Like the body and neck dates, using serial numbers to date a Fender is not a sure bet. Who knows how long it was waiting in the Fender factory before finding its way into a Tele? These can definitely be useful in cases where no other numbers exist, but just tell when the pot itself was made. 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.

For Fender during the turning point era of the mid-'60s, check out Fender and the CBS Takeover.Ī Timeline History of Fender Strats '54-Today: What's The Difference? 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. The most important thing to keep in mind when dating a Fender is the highly modular nature of the designs.