Hello

I took the neck of my 80's AmSt the other day. I hoped to find dates on the neck and body. But the neck pocket was just stamped "OK", and the neck was stamped "G.Romero". No dates.
The serial number begins with E815, and I assume it was made in '88. Is there anyway to tell for sure it is an '88, and is it possible to approximate a date?

Thanx

Dunno exactly about the year, but G.Romero used to make those necks in that era. He made a lot of necks for the Strat Plus series also.

It sounds like any date stamps that might have been there have faded off; I do know that Fender started using the "E8XXXXX" serial numbers in 1988 - although you can find individual guitars that have either "E3" or "E4" serial numbers with date stamps as late as 1989 the majority of them had "E8" numbers by the spring of 1988. I suppose you could check the pot dates but also in that era Fender used up the parts they got when they purchased the company from CBS so you really can't always go by that either. I would just say that you have a 1988; you've done about all you can do to get a closer date on the guitar.

It wouldn't even help to contact Fender; their internal database only goes back to 1994. I've heard two stories about the 1985-1993 records - (1) that they were only in hard copy and the record boxes were damaged/destroyed in a warehouse accident, or (2) they were on an old computer system and the electronic records were accidentally erased when they migrated to a new system.

Thanks for the answers!
There is no sign of any date stamp, so I doubt that they have faded. But by the looks of the neck end I would guess it has possibly been sanded after it was stamped, presumably to fit the pocket. Although I've heard this is absolutely not a recommended procedure when assembling a guitar..?
I've heard of other AmSt's from this era with no dates. So maybe they were just sloppy or did not consider it important at the time?
Anyway, it's no big deal. I just got curious as I expected to find an exact date. I thought maybe there might be some other signs to give a hint, like some different details on the strats made between '87 and '89.

I've had this guitar for over 20 years and I will never part with it, it's my favourite "player". So it would've been nice to know her birthday, you know

There were no stamps used in 88. They used a pencil to write the date (MM-DD-YY) on the back of the neck heel.
If it´s just faded maybe you have luck by putting on a thin paper and rub a pencil to make the written date show up.

Best of luck
Cheers,
Robin

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