Серийные номера гитар ltd

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ESP SERIAL NUMBERS — Guitars Collector
FOR SALE!
Серийные номера гитар ltd
DATING ESP GUITARS BY REFERENCE OF SERIAL NUMBERS
Серийные номера гитар ltd
DATING GRETSCH GUITARS BY REFERENCE OF SERIAL NUMBERS

ESP SERIAL NUMBERS — Guitars Collector

FOR SALE!

NOTES ON SERIAL NUMBERS:

— year «7» can be 1987 or 1997, «8» can be 1988 or 1998, «9» can be 1989 or 1999! You have to look at the models in production that year.

— lot of old esp’s does not have any serial on the back of the headstock. If you are lucky you can find a serial written on pencil where the body is bolted to the neck (or in the neck also) or in one of the pickup cavities.

SERIAL UNDER PICKUPS:

For example my MX-220 have serial » #80129″ that means was made the 08-1991 number 29)

K = ESP Kiso Factory (Japan) / set-neck and neck-thru only;

S = ESP Sado Factory (Japan) / bolt-on only;

T = ESP Takada Factory (Japan) / ESP Custom Shop

SS = ESP Standard Factory / Signature Series or Standard Series

CH = Craft House

CS = Craft House (used rarely)

TH = Technical House

YY = last two digits of the year
WW = week of the year (max.52)
D = day of that week: 1 = monday, 2 = tuesday. (max.7)
NN = number off the line that day (max.99)
EXAMPLES:

— K0604202 means the manufacturing date is 24.01.2006 and it was the 2nd guitar built that day in Kiso Factory.

— K1507501 means the manufacturing date is 13.02.2015 and it was the 1st guitar built that day in Kiso Factory.

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Серийные номера гитар ltd

DATING ESP GUITARS BY REFERENCE OF SERIAL NUMBERS

The serial numbers of ESP guitars were not or hardly administered in the early days of production. Serial numbers from before 2000 are therefore unreliable for an exact date.

Where to find the serial number
The serial number is stamped on the back of the headstock, punched on the neck plate or on (semi) acoustic guitars on the bottom inside the body.

If you want to know the production year of your ESP guitar,you can decipher it with the serial number decoder, or find it in explanation about the dating system below.

ESP history in short

The founder of the ESP company is Hisatake Shibuya.
He was born in 1937 in Sado on the island of the same name in Japan.
After graduating from Doshina University in 1961, he joined the guitar manufacturer Kawai. After 4 years he joined Yamaha and later the guitar manufacturer Fernandes.

During this period he gained a lot of experience and started his own company in Tokyo in 1975. The company where he employed 3 employees consisted of a shop and a workshop for repairs and making parts
for guitars. Guitars were also made here on a special order, which were built to the individual wishes of the customer.

The sale of the own-built guitars turned out to be a great success and the demand for them grew quickly. A few years later, the production facilities were therefore moved to larger premises just outside Tokyo.
The company expanded and from 1979 orders for customized guitars
were also produced worldwide.

In 1981 ESP established itself in the USA with an office in New York and in 1983 in Germany for distribution in Europe.
Also in 1983, Hisatake Shibuya started a ‘guitar making vocational school’, some graduates of which landed a job at ESP.

ESP already had several hundred employees, but that number grew after
a new plant was opened in 1986 in Sado Island.

In 1985 George Lynch of the heavy metal band Dokken discovered during
a tour in Japan that ESP also built custom guitars.
As a result, his famous ESP Kamikaze was created and ESP released this George Lynch’s Kamikaze as his first signature model.

In 1990, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett visited the ESP Custom Shop with the idea of building a model based on the mysterious Ouija board game.
The first version was for Kirk only but had two spelling errors.
Instead of «WILLIAM FULD TALKING BOARD», the Ouija body of this first version reads «WILLIAM FUED TALKING BAARD SET».
The first batch of the Ouijas with Kirk signature were neck-thru and were released in 1993, destined for the Japanese market. Later the Ouija was introduced as a Bolt On guitar.
The official introduction for export was in 1995.

ESP gained fame by making guitars for trash metal guitarists including
James Hetfield (Metallica), Scott Ian (Anthrax) and Jeff Hanneman (Slayer).
As a result, ESP has become one of the most popular suppliers of heavy metal guitars.

To keep costs down, the LTD series were now also made in Korea (later
also in Indonesia, China and Vietnam) from 1996 and the export to the
USA of the Japan-made LTD guitars stopped.

However, despite the now increased prices, ESP resumed the export of
the Japanese series to the USA in the early 2000s.

Hisatake Shibuya

George Lynch with ESP kamikaze

Kirk Hammett with ESP Ouija
The top-quality ESP guitars are made in the ESP managed and
operated factory in Japan, and the more affordable LTD line is
made in various locations in Asia.

The popularity and demand for ESP guitars continues to expand,
with a new factory opened in North Hollywood, CA, USA in 2014
near the new Los Angeles headquarters.
Here the line of ESP USA guitars is produced and was added to
the existing well-known series of ESP as LTD and E-II series.

ESP is constantly innovating both electric and acoustic models.

The dating of guitars built in the eighties and nineties is often unreliable. Its administration was done carelessly. Some guitars from that period have no serial number at all.

Also with the neck plate serial numbers do not always give the
exact date. (If they already have a number because neck plates
with only the ESP logo were also used)
The plates with number were made well in advance and used randomly.

For guitars without a serial number on the headstock or neck
plate, you may still be able to find a serial number on the heel of
the neck.
There is also a chance that a number is written in the cavity on the body of the pickups. In that case you can decipher this number in the decoder to a date.

The eight-digit coding system from before 2000 looks like this: DDMMYNNN
DD = day of the month (01 — 31)
MM = month (01 — 12) Y = Last digit of the year
NNN = production number 000 — 999
Example: 25055012 is the 12nd guitar built on May 25th 1995.

After 2000 a serial number system was used which is a lot simpler.
It consists of 1 or 2 letters followed by 7 digits. The letter (s) indicate the location of manufacture. The first 2 digits are the year, the next
2 digits are the week number, the 5th digit is the day of the week
and the last 2 digits is the production number.
Example: SS1209210
SS = Custom Shop ESP 12 = 2012 09 = week number 9
2 = the 2nd day of week 9 10 = production number
So SS1209210 is the 10nd guitar, built on February 28, 2012 in the Custom Shop of ESP in Tokyo.
This system was used until 2015.

From 2016 another system was introduced.
This system consists of 1 letter followed by 7 digits.
The letter is the brand name, E = ESP.
The first 4 digits are the production number, the next 2 digits the year and the last digit the series type. (1 = Custom series, 2 = Signatures series and 3 = E-II series).
Example: E1234162
E = ESP 1234 = production number 16 = 2016 2 = Signatures Series

Kirk Hammett Signature (K-) serial numbers
The first Kirk Hammett Signature guitars appeared as Custom Shop models back in 1993.
Kirk Hammett’s signature is on the front of the headstock and the serial number on the back of the headstock.

These serial numbers start with K- followed by 4 or 5 digits. Until the official introduction in 1995 the guitars had a 4 digit number, then a 5 digit number was introduced.

Kirk Hammett Signature (K- serial number)

ASIA The guitars built in Korea, India, Indonesia, China and Vietnam use different serial number systems.
This makes proper dating difficult. What they do have in common is
that the first 2 digits after the letter prefix contain the year.

Productie locations
Letter + 7 digits. E and U = Korea. I = Vietnam. L = China.

2 letters + 7 digits. IS and IR = Indonesia.
Letter + 8 digits.
W = World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon, Korea.

2 letters + 8 digits.
IW, IX and IS = Indonesia.
WR and GW = World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon, Korea.
SX, SK, RS and SP = China.

2 letters + 9 digits. IS = Indonesia.

Factory World Musical Instrument Co., Incheon, Korea

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Серийные номера гитар ltd

DATING GRETSCH GUITARS BY REFERENCE OF SERIAL NUMBERS

Over the years, Gretsch Company has been owned by various companies that also use their own method of serial numbers and dating.

Where to find the serial number
On most modern (after 1989) Gretsch guitars you will find it on the back of the headstock. Some models from 1962 — late 1960s also had serial numbers on the top of the headstock or on the pickguard. With most vintage specimens you can find a label, visible through the F-hole on hollow body or in one control cavity for solid body. Before 1949 there were no labels and the serial numbers were written in pencil inside the guitar.

If you want to know the production year of your Gretsch guitar, you can decipher it with the serial number decoder, or find it in the tables below.

Gretsch history in short

Friedrich Gretsch, a German immigrant from Mannheim, started in 1883 with building from drum kits and banjos.

After WWI the company has been taken over by his son Fred.Under his leadership, the company flourished and gained the reputation for high quality and precision.

Around 1930 with the rise of big bands, the banjo was gradually replaced
by the guitar. In 1939 the first electric guitar from Gretsch was released,
the «Electromatic Line» followed by the archtop model «Synchromatic Line».

In 1942 he handed over the company to his sons Fred Jr. and William.
Led by Fred Gretsch jr. Mainly in the middle of the 1950s many innovative guitars were built, such as the Model 6120 and the «White Falcon».

In 1967 the company was sold to Baldwin Piano Company and the production was moved to Arkansas. The entire production was stopped in 1981 due to a fire in the factory.

In the 1980s, interest in Gretsch guitars revived. Thanks to, among other, the Stray Cats and Chris Isaak and the production was resumed. The Gretsch White Falcon 1 has been a popular model again since the early 1980s.

Since 1985, when Fred got the company back into the family, the Gretsches were made in Japan.

In 2002, Fred approached the Fender company for distribution in Europe. Fender offered to distribute it worldwide and also build the guitars for Gretsch.
Gretsch and Fender signed an agreement in 2003 allowing Fender to gain control over production and distribution of guitars and gained a foothold in the Gibson dominated market for semi-acoustic guitars.
New and improved old models soon appeared.
Friedrich Gretsch (1885)

In the early years (1939-1945) Gretsch started with handwritten sequential serial numbers (001-999), written directly on the inside of the guitar.
Often these serials are vague or almost illegible or completely erased.
If you see at least three hard-to-read numbers, you can be pretty sure that it is a pre-war instrument.

In the period from 1945 to 1954 there is the transition from handwritten serial numbers to the official labels in 1949, although the numbering remained the same.

The following serials are approximate. In general, a higher number means that the guitar was produced later in the year or transferred to the next year’s range. (xx runs from 00 to 99)

Serial number	PRODUCTION YEAR
Down 1000	Pre-World War II
1000 to 20xx	1945-1947
20xx to 30xx	1948-1949
30xx to 40xx	1950
40xx to 50xx	1951
50xx to 70xx	1952
70xx to 90xx	1953
90xx to 130xx	1954

In the period of 1954-1965 the consecutive numbering scheme remained the same. The only difference is that the number of guitars produced (and therefore serial numbers) is higher.

(*) In 1957, about a thousand serial number labels were lost for unknown reasons. Part of this is recovered in 1965 and used for that year’s production.

Serial number	PRODUCTION YEAR
130xx to 180xx	1955
180xx to 210xx	1956
210xx to 260xx	1957 *()**
260xx to 300xx	1958
300xx to 340xx	1959
340xx to 390xx	1960
390xx to 450xx	1961
451xx to 530xx	1962
530xx to 630xx	1963
630xx to 770xx	1964
770xx to 840xx	1965 *()**

With the imminent acquisition by Baldwin and annual production of approximately 150,000 guitars, Gretsch switched to a date-linked coding system in August 1966.
Strangely enough, some guitars have serial numbers stamped into the narrow top of the headstock, while others have it stamped on the back. From June of 1967, the text ‘Made in the USA’ is stamped next to the
serial number.

The date-code distribution used from 1966 to 1972:
(without a hyphen in the serial number)
The first digit(s) represent the month of manufacture (1-12 for January-December).
The next digit is the last digit of the year (6, 7, 8, 9, 0, 1, 2 for 1966-1972).
The last three digits is the production number of that month.
Example 129800:
Month: December Year: 1969 Production number: 800

The guitars manufactured from 1972-1981 are easier to identify because they are the only Gretsch specimens with a hyphen (or a space) after the first one or two digits.

The meaning of the numbers is the same as that without a hyphen.
The digits for the hyphen are for the month (1-12).
The first position after the hyphen (or space) represents the last digit of the year (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0, 1 for 1972-1981).
The last three digits represent the production number for that month.
Example 6-2752:
Month: June Year: 1972 Production number: 752

Before the acquisition by Fender (in 2003), a more logical sequential application for the period 1989-2002 is the production made in Japan with a xxxxxx-xxx serial number.

The first two digits are the year, the next digit or two digits is the month (1-9/10-12). The subsequent three digits is the model number, eg. 120 = G6120.
The digits after the hyphen show the production number during the execution of the model. (not for that month or year)
Example 976120-123:
Month: June, Year: 1997, Model: 120, Production number: 123

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