Might be a lame queston but how do you get the info like age of a guitar from a serial number??

I have a tele with the number N2928203

I bought it in the ninties are 93 i think may be right.

Cheers
Mike

Mike - you can check under the "Support" tab under "Product Dating" for this info as well, but here goes:

From mid-1976 through the end of 2009 Fender used a nomenclature where the first character is a letter that indicates the decade of manufacture and the second character is the year of manufacture. The remaining 5-6 digits are the unique serial number of the guitar. Breaking down your serial number it would be a 1992 guitar:

N = "Nineties"
2 = "Two"

so "N2" = 1992.

Fender used "S" for "Seventies, "E" for "Eighties", and "Z" for "Zeros" (or 2000s). Fender did change this up this year; for a few months they used a "10" in a slightly different font from the other numbers, but starting about May of this year they began using a "US10" on USA guitars.

This is not 100% accurate - it just gets you close. Fender doesn't throw away remaining "N2" serial number decals on January 2, 1993; they use them up. You would have to remove the neck to see the actual dates stamped on the neck heel and in the neck pocket of the body to see when the guitar was built.

There are several noted anomalies to this:

"S9" serial numbers were used on Strats from 1979 through 1981.
"E3" serial numbers were used on 2-knob Strats and Elite Strats in both 1983/84

CBS sold Fender to FMIC in 1985; there were no USA Fenders made from early 1986 until pretty late in 1986. Part of the materials CBS sold FMIC were decals with "E4" serial numbers. These were used on American Standards made from late 1986 until fairly early in 1988 when they began using E8 decals.

N9 decals were accidentally used in 1990 instead of "N0" decals.

Those are the main major anomalies on the decals, but there are others.

Hi Mike

The 'N' prefix does indeed denote nineties. The following digit, 2, denotes just that, two. So your guitar was made in 1992.

There are a few others that follow the same rules.
D is for Deluxe series. If your guitar was a Deluxe model the serial would read DN2. That didn't exist then though, so it can't.

Mexican guitars start with a M
California Series guitars start AMX

Unfortunately there are no hard fast rules for Vintage reissue, Custom Shop, Japanese or guitars from Korea.

Guitars built in this century prior to this year and probably next start with a Z for zero. So they run Z1, Z2 etc.

Hope that clears some of it up.

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No no and no

Mike Please defer to John C's superior knowledge on this subject.

Cheers John. Very informative about a time I know nothing of.

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No no and no