YMC 38' Cutaway Natural Beginner Acoustic Guitar Starter Package Student Guitar with Gig Bag,Strap, 3 thickness 9 picks,2 Pickguards,Pick Holder, Extra Strings, Electronic Tuner -Natural Cutaway 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,989. Getting started - Guitar Dater, Decoder and Serial Number Search Lookup Tool. Currently, we are working on getting our guitar dater lookup and search tool fleshed out. Enter your serial number and we'll look up the date of manufacture using our lightning fast engine. Inspect the guitar’s body for brand markings and serial numbers. Check hollow body models for a label inside the soundbox that can be viewed and read through the sound hole(s), or numbers engraved on the neck, head or fingerboard. Look on the head and back of the guitar for electric models which often have an engraved plate.
ACOUSTIC GUITARS
Epiphone used a serialnumber system for their acoustic guitars. Two or three digits were ink stamped on the neck block or blind stamped on the interior back of the Recording models, three digits (or four ?) blind stamped on the interior back of the Seville models.
Recording E s/n 94 ink stamped on the neck block
Recording C s/n 275 blind stamped on the interior back below the soundhole
NOTE: Fisch & Fred mention a four-digit Seville 4 Special (called Model 4 Special s/n 5417) on page 235 .
The Masterbilt serialnumber system did not start with the number 1000 but with the number 5000. The reason for this is unknown. The serial numbers were blind stamped on the interior back under the bass f-hole, generally below but sometimes on the (oval) label, maybe even without a label like the earlier Recording and Seville models.
Broadway s/n 5053 blind stamped without a label
De Luxe s/n 5369 blind stamped below the label
De Luxe s/n 6677 blind stamped on the label
From about 1934 forward, the serial numbers were ink typed directly on the label (Long Island label) or letter pressed on the label (rectangular Masterbilt label, Green label and Blue label). see pictures
Quite often the serialnumber was also blind stamped (some handwritten) on the underside of the bridgefoot. Occasionally the serialnumber was handwritten on one of the braces.
Zenith s/n 7738
Olympic s/n 6851
Olympic s/n 11690
The s/n is sometimes ink typed on a label where it should have been letter pressed. According to Wiedler Epiphone often applied a newer type label with the old s/n typed in when a guitar was brought in for repair. There are also a few cases of a s/n on an older than typical label, probably either by mistake or because they had ran out of the current type see pictures For a reason unknown a new numbering system was applied in 1944 which started with number 50.000.
NOTE: Although the Sorrentino and the Howard guitars were offered under another brand, they are part of the same serial number system.
References :
Felix Wiedler, NY Epi Reg
Jim Fisch & L.B. Fred, The House of Stathopoulo, 1996, pp. 221-225
ELECTRIC GUITARS
“While Epiphone’s SN systems for acoustic instruments and 1950s electric hollow bodies appear to be pretty straightforward, the SN systems of their other electric instruments and amps are much less so. Over the years a number of different SN systems were used.” (Wiedler)
“With the inception of the Electar line in late 1935, Epiphone began a new numbering system which was employed solely on the electric instruments (Electar, Century, Coronet, Zephyr, Kent, Harry Volpe model). This manifested itself in the form of a blind stamped number between three and five digits, usually located on the top rear of the headstock. (Fisch & Fred, The House of Stathopoulo, page 225)
Wiedler wrote us June 2013: “The Electar series started at a lower s/n than 3-digit. The earliest example I have documented is s/n 25.
Until circa 1938 the s/n stamp is located on the top edge of the headstock. When the headstock shape of the Spanish electrics changed to the center-dip style the stamp was moved to the back of the headstock.
Wiedler wrote us May 2016: “The first Electar instruments from 1935 don’t show a serial number. In c. 1936 serial numbers started possibly near SN 1 (first documented is SN 25) and reached the 7000s by the time electric instrument/amp production was virtually halted during WW2. Currently I have listed Zephyr Spanish SN 7182 as the last pre-war electric guitar.
When Epiphone restarted electric instrument production in 1946, only the Zephyr Hawaiian model carried on with the old SN system – the first documented is SN 7307. All other electric models used a new 5-6 digit SN system – with model-specific 2-3 digit prefix followed by a 3-digit serial suffix. This lasted until 1949. Around 1950 hollowbody electrics adopted the label/SN system of acoustic instruments (first documented example: Zephyr Regent SN 60182), while electric Hawaiian instruments used a new SN system starting around SN 9000.” see pictures
References :
Felix Wiedler, NY Epi Reg
Jim Fisch & L.B. Fred, The House of Stathopoulo, 1996, p. 224-227
For Epiphone serialnumbers of the Upright Bass, see : Bass Monkey
| Alfred Dronge was born in Warsaw, Poland on August 16, 1911 as Avram Dronge. In 1916 he emigrated with his parents to the US. In the early 1930s Alfred found a job in the music store 'Silver & Horland' where he learned a lot about music and musical instruments. Alfred himself played banjo and classical guitar and played in a small orchestra and also gave music lessons. In 1936, Alfred partnered with Barney Sagman open a music store at 130 Park Row in New York City. After two years, Sagman was bought out and Alfred began to specialize in repairing used instruments. In 1952 he founded along with former 'Epiphone Guitar Company' executive George Mann, in New York 'The Guild Guitar Company'. After only a few months, Alfred took full ownership of the company. Epiphone's move to Philadelphia brought some of the Epiphone employees into Guild. In 1953, the first hollow body electric guitars were produced in Manhattan, New York. In the following years, the first flat tops and acoustic archtops were built. Due to the rapid growth of the company, production was moved from New York to larger premises in Hoboken, New Jersey. For the growth of the company are factory manager Bob Bromberg, luthier Carlo Greco and Gilbert Diaz partly responsible. In the 1960s folk music became popular in the US. This led Guild to produce a line of acoustic folk and blues guitars with models as D-40, D50 and D-55. Also popular in this decade were the Starfire, Thunderbird and S-100 Polara models. Inspired by Carlo Greco, Guild also started making their first classical guitars. The first model is named after Alfred Dronge's son, Mark. The company continued to expand and was sold in 1966 to the Avnet Corporation, which relocated production from Hoboken to Westerly, Rhode Island. The first guitar (M-20) came from this factory in 1967. The decline in interest in folk and acoustic music in the late 1970s was a heavy economic pressure on the company. A tragic day was May 3, 1972; Alfred died in his private plane that crashed near the airport in Groton. Alfred Dronge was 60 years old. In the 1980's Guild introduced a range of solid body guitars with models as the Aviator, Detonator, Liberator, Flyer and the Pilot Bass (fret and fretless). These guitars were the first Guild instruments with slender pointed headstocks and, because of this shape, were also called pointy droopy, duck foot and cake knife . In 1995 Guild was sold to Fender Musical Instruments Corporation (FMIC). In late 2001, Fender decided to close the Westerly, Rhode Island plant and relocate all Guild production to the Corona, California plant. However, production in Corona was short-lived. In 2004 Fender bought the facility from the Washington-based Tacoma Guitar Company. All American Guild acoustic guitar production moved to Tacoma. The production of in the US. Guild made electric guitars was discontinued completely. | Alfred Dronge Carlo Greco In 2008, Fender Guild moved again when it acquired Kaman Music Corporation of New Hartford, Connecticut. Here the handicraft production of all US-made Guilds was resumed. The Guild factory in New Hartford began with production of the top models D-55 and F-50 in 2009. The production was soon increased and acousto-electric versions of these models were also made. In 2014, production in New Hartford was discontinued because FMIC had sold the Guild brand to Cordoba Music Group (CMG), based in Santa Monica, California. Cordoba set up a new factory in Oxnard, California and started production in 2015. The first models were introduced in early 2016, the M-20 and D-20. The more expensive models such as the D-55 followed in 2017. In the early 2000s a new line of Guild acoustic guitars was developed, the GAD series. GAD stands for Guild Acoustic Design. These guitars were based on Guild's earlier acoustic designs but were built in China and are prefixed with GAD. The GAD line was discontinued by Cordoba in 2014. In 2015, the acoustics 'Westerly Collection' and electric 'Newark Street' line were introduced as a tribute to Guild's more than sixty years of rich manufacturing history. |
Olympia Guitars Serial Numbers For Sale
SERIAL NUMBERS
The tables below provide the most accurate information available to Guild to distinguish date of manufacture by serial number. But as already
Guitar Serial Number Dating
mentioned, the documentation of the serial numbers is not complete because there are lists in the past have been lost causing leaving some
gaps in the dating.
1952-1960
1970-1979
1984-1989
1990-1994
1994-1996
1997-1999
| The round label on the inside with a GAD (number) were consecutive but do not refer to the production date of the guitar. The serial number that correlates with the production date can be found on the heel block. For the decoder: only enter the number on the neck block, so without GAD in front.
Guild factory New Hartford
GY = China. YY = Year.(20YY) MM = Month. xx = Production number. KC = Korea Cort. IC = Indonesia Cort. Y = Year.(199Y) KC = Korea Cort. Y = Year.(20YY) xxxxxx = Production number. KWM = Korea World Musical. KSG = Korea SPG. YY = Year.(20YY) xxxxx = Production number. C = Corona, California. MM = Model. (example: UV = F50, PM = D25 ) xxxxxx = Production number. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||