I often get asked, how old is my Fender guitar? Most of the time this question can't be answered specifically. The Fender numbers tell the story of the company.

The V.C. Squier Company manufactured strings for violins, banjos, and guitars. It was established in 1890 by Victor Carroll Squier in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1965, the company was acquired by Fender. By 1975, Squier became defunct as a manufacturer and a brand name for strings, as Fender opted to market its strings under the Fender brand name.

In 1982, the Squier brand was reactivated by Fender to become its brand for lower priced versions of Fender guitars. Squier guitars have been manufactured in Japan, Korea, Mexico, India, Indonesia, China, and the United States.

• 1History

History[edit]

V.C. Squier Company (1890–1975)[edit]

Jerome Bonaparte Squier, a young English immigrant who arrived in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the latter part of the 19th century, was a farmer and shoemaker who had learned the fine European art of violin making. He moved to Boston in 1881, where he built and repaired violins with his son, Victor Carroll Squier. To this day, their violins are noted for their exceptional varnishes, and they command high prices as fine examples of early U.S. instrument craftsmanship. Indeed, J.B. Squier ranks among the best-known U.S.-trained violin makers and is often referred to as 'the American Stradivarius.'

Victor returned to Battle Creek, where he opened his own shop in 1890. As his business grew, Squier moved the company to 429 Lake Ave. and eventually to 427 Capitol Ave, S.W.—the famous 'fiddle factory' of Battle Creek. With a limited market for violins in Battle Creek, however, Squier astutely sought relationships with national music schools and famous violinists.

Up to 1900, the best violin strings were made in Europe. Victor Squier started making his own hand-wound violin strings, and the business grew so quickly that he and his employees improvised a dramatic production increase by converting a treadle sewing machine into a string winder capable of producing 1,000 uniformly high-quality strings per day. Squier violin strings, banjo strings and guitar strings became well known nationwide and were especially popular among students because of their reasonable price.

In the 1930s, Squier began making strings for the era's new electric instruments; the company also sold pianos, radios and phonograph records until divesting itself of all string-related products in 1961. Fender Electric Instruments entered the picture in the 1950s, when the V.C. Squier Company began supplying Southern California inventor and businessman Leo Fender with strings for his unusual new electric guitars. The V.C. Squier Company became an official original equipment manufacturer for Fender in 1963. Fender acquired the V.C. Squier Company in early 1965, shortly before Fender itself was acquired by CBS in May of the same year. By the mid-1970s, the Squier name was retired as the strings had taken the Fender name.^[1]

Squier Guitars (1982–present)[edit]

Before the Fender Squier line of guitars was introduced in 1982, Fender was making lower priced guitars such as the Fender Lead series at its Fullerton, California plant. Until the introduction of the Fender Squier series, Fender had never produced lower priced guitars based on its main Stratocaster and Telecaster models and had always used different model designs for its lower priced guitars.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Fender was facing competition from lower priced Japanese made guitars. The higher priced Fender guitars were made in the United States and could not compete with the lower prices of Japanese made Fender copies. In the early 1980s, Japanese labor and production costs were much lower than in America and to compete with the Japanese made guitars, Fender moved the lower priced Fender guitar production from America to Japan.

Fender was also losing sales in Japan to Japanese guitar brands such as Tōkai, Greco and Fernandes and the establishment of Fender Japan would benefit Fender sales in Japan, as well as overseas. Fender began negotiations with several Japanese musical instrument distributors and reached an agreement with Yamano Gakki and Kanda Shokai to establish Fender Japan. Yamano Gakki was known for once being part of Epiphone Japan. Kanda Shokai owned the Greco brand name and one of the conditions of the Fender Japan agreement was that Kanda Shokai cease production of its own Greco Fender copies. This arrangement benefited Fender because it removed the Greco Fender copies from the Japanese market, which were selling in Japan at much lower prices than the American made Fenders and it also benefited Kanda Shokai because Kanda Shokai could then distribute Japanese made Fender branded guitars in Japan. Further negotiations between Fender and Japanese guitar factories took place. Tokai was seriously considered to start building the first Japanese made Fenders, but after a breakdown in negotiations, FujiGen Gakki was chosen instead.^[2]

The initial Squier models were launched on July/August 1982. Over time, the Squier series slowly evolved to include original model designs and production has moved from Japan to various other Asian countries such as Korea, China and Indonesia.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Fender Squier HistoryArchived July 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
2. ^'Fender Japan History'. Daeschler.com. Retrieved 2013-12-14.

External links[edit]

How Old is My Fender Guitar?

Contents

• 1 How Old is My Fender Guitar?
• 3 1950-1954 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers
• 4 1954-1963 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers
• 5 Late 1962 – Early 1965 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers
• 6 1965-1976 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers
• 7 1976-Present USA Fender Guitar Serial Numbers
• 8 Fender Anniversary, Reissue, Special Edition, and Signature Series

I often get asked, how old is my Fender guitar? Most of the time this question can’t be answered specifically. The Fender numbers tell the story of the company over the years. Unfortunately, the serial number placement is sporadic and many ID numbers over lap between years and models. In many instances, there is no exact known date for a specific guitar. That is why I decided to write this article. I want to help you understand how to tell the age of your Fender as well as any Fender you see.

Fender like Gibson has been producing guitars for many years. Certain styles and colors have come and gone over the years, but there is no real obvious way to tell how old a Fender is other than the identification number. Unfortunately, Fender decided not to simply write the date of manufacture on the guitar. They decided that it would be easier to decipher the serial number code than just write the year on the guitar. I say this only joking. Most manufactures don’t actually write the production dates on the guitar in plain view. First let’s take a look at where to find ID numbers on a Fender guitar.

Where do I find my Fender Serial Number?

This article is intended to help you date your Fender Stratocaster, Telecaster, and Precision Bass guitars all the way back to the early 1950s. In order to tell how old your Fender is you will have to find the identification number or neck number. The serial number location has changed a few times of the years. From 1950 to 1954 Fender guitar unique numbers 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 Fender production guitars, 1976 to the present, have their ID numbers on the front or back of the headstock near the 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 identification numbers stamped in the neck plate.

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

What does the date on the neck mean?

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

Fender Serial Number Guide

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

• 1950 – 1954
• 1954 – 1963
• Late 1962 – Early 1965
• 1965 – 1976
• 1976 – Present USA
• Fender Anniversary, Reissue, Special Edition, and Signature Guitar
• Made in China

1950-1954 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

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

1954-1963 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

At some point in 1954, Fender decided to stop grouping the guitar ID number by model. He started using one sequence of serial numbers for all the guitars coming off of the Fender production lines including Teles, Esquires, Strats, and P-basses. Some of these identification numbers are still out of sequence, jumbled up, or missing. You may notice that there is a great deal of over lapping numbers in these nine years. The only way to verify an over lapping date is to check the corresponding neck date and body date. This list is a little convoluted because there are so many over lapping serial numbers. The number column represents the general number grouping that Fender and most experts agree on. The low and high columns show the range of identification numbers that have been positively matched to specific years. As you can see, there is quite a bit of overlap. For some reason during 1955, 1957, and 1958 Fender decided to place zero or a dash in front of ID numbers periodically. Some guitars in these years have them and some don’t.

Late 1962 – Early 1965 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

Toward the end of 1962 Fender’s success kept on building. He was nearing his 100,000th guitar. Instead of adding another digit on to his 5-digit ID numbers, Leo decided to add an “L”, presumably for his first initial, in front of the serial numbers and start the sequence all over again. This time all the identification 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.

Fender Strat Serial Number Decoder Lookup

1965-1976 Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

In early 1965, Leo Fender sold Fender Musical Instruments, Inc. to CBS for $13 million. A lot of changes happened to the company as well as the guitars themselves under the new ownership. The identification number sequences were no exception.

CBS came up with a new numbering system to take advantage of the fact that Leo did not use 6-digit ID 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 new neck plate only had the Fender F logo stamped in place.

1976-Present USA Fender Guitar Serial Numbers

In 1976, Fender decided to stop stamping ID numbers in guitar parts and started making decals for the guitar peghead or headstock. Along with the 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 numbers. 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 number S76823 would be a guitar produced in 1977. In about 1982 Fender started making import guitars from Japan and around 1990 Fender started importing from Mexico. These guitars have a completely different set of serial numbers that I will talk about later in the article. This section only deals with USA made Fender guitars. Here are the decade numbers:

The new serial number system was a little complicated, but it does make it relatively easy to tell the date of the guitar. Like all Fender’s previous systems, they are problems with this one. Fender mass-produced the headstock decal without matching them with the annual production schedules of the guitars–meaning they made more decals for a given year than guitars. See the problem?

There were a few years where excess headstock ID number decals were produced and held over to the next year, the some guitars are actually dated with a previous year decal. It wasn’t until 1991 that Fender actually got this system straighten out. To get the exact date on guitars made between 1976 and 1991, it is important to cross-reference the dates on the neck written on the heel. Here are a list of dates and codes that overlap years.

Fender Strat Serial Number Decoder Free

Aside from all of the errors and overlapping serial numbers, this system was quite improved from the previous ID number systems. If Fender would have executed the indentification numbers as planned, USA Fender guitars would be numbered as the following without any exceptions. You can use this table to lookup your Fender serial number after 1976.

Fender Anniversary, Reissue, Special Edition, and Signature Series

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

Fender Telecaster Serial Number Decoder

Related Guides

Fender Strat Serial Number Decoder List

Fender Squire and Chinese numbering and dating guides are coming soon.

Fender Stratocaster Serial Number

You can also find more information on the Fender site.