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Post subject: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Sat May 11, 2013 11:42 pm
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Hey all,

I was here a while back seeking some knowledge, and I'm back with a new question. I just read in this book I bought that with post '76 neck plate seriel stamping, the headstock stamping had the letter indicating the decade, and then the first number indicating the year. What I understood before was that you couldn't narrow down the year during the Fullerton transition, and that all the Standards produced were produced between '86-'88, and mostly '86 & '87. I thought there were only those unique models being done in '84, and the reissues in '85. I have a basic Standard, seriel number E4xxxxx, and according to this book I think I'm perceiving correctly, my Strat would have been produced in 1984. Could anyone clarify or confirm this for me?

Thanks again for any feedback!


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Post subject: Re: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 7:50 am
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Photos or a description are necessary to answer your question. Here is the deal:

Fender, owned by CBS at the time, built what was called the "Standard Stratocaster" in 1983 and 1984. These Strats have the Free-Flyte top loading tremolo (no spring access on the back of the body), a single master tone knob, the output jack on the pickguard (where the second tone knob normally is located, and a 21-fret neck. These were made from early 1983 until CBS shut down production circa September 1984 (CBS stopped building bodies and necks circa June, and kept the assembly people around until everything they could assemble was completed). These were not large sellers so most of them have "E3xxxxx" serial numbers, but there are some out there with "E4xxxxx" serial numbers.

FMIC began producing the American Standard Strat in late 1986. These have a 2-post tremolo (traditional-style with the spring access on the back of the body), the regular angled jack plate, and a 22-fret neck. FMIC wound up using the stacks of unused headstock decals with "E3xxxxx" and "E4xxxxx" serial numbers on them. However, these would date from anywhere between late 1986 and mid-1988. About mid-1988 the serial numbers do "jump" to "E8xxxxx". Fender doesn't really get remotely close to being "on track" with the serial numbers until at least 1991, more likely 1992 as there was a serial number mix-up and some "N9xxxxx" numbers were used in 1990 or 1991.

CBS sold Fender to their management team in early February 1985; the management team didn't buy CBS's huge Fullerton factory; they just bought the name, some remaining part (which would be components, not bodies and necks), and some but not all of the machinery, workbenches, tools, etc. from the factory. The new company, FMIC, did lease the Fullerton factory and they used it to set up and store the MIJ models they were importing in 1985. They found new space in Corona for the factory and Brea for the business offices; and finally moved in to Corona in the summer of 1985. By October 1985 they were building USA Reissues (which weren't called "American Vintage" until 1998) but on a very small scale - approximately 5-10 per day. So USA production was pretty small throughout 1986.

American Standards were designed over 1985 and 1986; Fender showed some prototypes at the Summer NAMM show, and put the American Standard into production about October 1986, introducing them at the January 1987 NAMM show. Fender did ramp up production pretty quickly once the American Standards were released; by mid-1987 they were up to 150 instruments per day.


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Post subject: Re: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 3:28 pm
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Many Fender instruments in the '87 (to include my '87 Strat Plus) received E4 S/Ns.


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Post subject: Re: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Sun May 12, 2013 4:40 pm
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Right, ok, and I think I remember hearing about this before... how forgteful I'm getting. So, the E4xxxxx labels were intended to be placed on guitars during the 1984 year, but got used up from '86-'88 instead. It sounds a little cheap of Fender not to produce new sets of labels in order to keep a sound dating system without taking guitars apart. And you say they never really got on track until 1991 with good dating, that's kinda sad. I guess the company was pretty hard up at that time, and needed save a few bucks. I hope if they had it to do over again, they'd spring for sets of accurate labels. Anyway, I've got an American Standard from between '86-'88, likely an '86 or '87, and it has a leftover label from '84.

Thanks for the clarification again, JohnC.


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Post subject: Re: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 5:56 am
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allstarrr wrote:
Right, ok, and I think I remember hearing about this before... how forgteful I'm getting. So, the E4xxxxx labels were intended to be placed on guitars during the 1984 year, but got used up from '86-'88 instead. It sounds a little cheap of Fender not to produce new sets of labels in order to keep a sound dating system without taking guitars apart. And you say they never really got on track until 1991 with good dating, that's kinda sad. I guess the company was pretty hard up at that time, and needed save a few bucks. I hope if they had it to do over again, they'd spring for sets of accurate labels. Anyway, I've got an American Standard from between '86-'88, likely an '86 or '87, and it has a leftover label from '84.

Thanks for the clarification again, JohnC.


Take apart the neck and body. There should be dates wither stamped or writting on the heal of the neck. Keep in mind though that necks and bodies can sit around for a bit. My, ordered from Fender in Feb 2001, EC Strat has a 2000 S/N and Oct 2000 stamped on the neck.

I call it a 2001 or 2000 EC Strat depending on which I can remember at the time. Being that I personally ordered the guitar (through a music store) in January of 2001 and had to wait a month because I wanted Candy Green, I didn't recieve the guitar until the end of February 2001. IF I had waited any longer, I would have received an EC Strat with the Fender Noiseless pickups, in stead of the Lace Sensors.

Fender never throws anything away.


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Post subject: Re: Seriel # code question?
Posted: Mon May 13, 2013 7:02 am
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allstarrr wrote:
Right, ok, and I think I remember hearing about this before... how forgteful I'm getting. So, the E4xxxxx labels were intended to be placed on guitars during the 1984 year, but got used up from '86-'88 instead. It sounds a little cheap of Fender not to produce new sets of labels in order to keep a sound dating system without taking guitars apart. And you say they never really got on track until 1991 with good dating, that's kinda sad. I guess the company was pretty hard up at that time, and needed save a few bucks. I hope if they had it to do over again, they'd spring for sets of accurate labels. Anyway, I've got an American Standard from between '86-'88, likely an '86 or '87, and it has a leftover label from '84.

Thanks for the clarification again, JohnC.


Fender was kind of on a shoestring budget back then - basically the management team had purchased the company from CBS, and their plans were to be much smaller than they had been under CBS. Compound that with the rejection of the Elite series and the "cost-cutting" Standard series by the marketplace and I'm sure they were a bit gun-shy about doing anything other than the USA Reissue series (which was just 3 guitars and 3 basses back then).

I think they used up those old headstock decals because they probably weren't sure if the marketplace would ever accept a "modernized" version of the original designs from Fender (particularly since you could get a "modernized" F-style guitar from any number of small and large USA and overseas companies) that they didn't want to waste even say $1,000 extra dollars on trashing some decals and having new ones printed - and that assumes the decals were only $0.01 each (call it 99,999 x .01). What if the decals were $0.10 each? Then they would be trashing $10K worth of materials for a product they weren't sure would go in the marketplace. Even at $1,000 that's a lot of money for what was essentially a "start-up" company even though they had the Fender brand equity (for better or worse depending on how you viewed CBS's "stewardship" of the company).

The other reason why it took so long for them to essentially "catch up" - production was still pretty small at that time; it too them more than one year to run through the 99,000+ decals until they got production up in later years. If production was at 150 per day through all of 1987, then that would be about 37,500 instruments - and some of them were reissues that did not use this style serial number.


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