DATING FENDER AMPS BY SERIAL NUMBER, PART VI. Fender had a big transitional year for their amps in 1960. Looking at serial numbers next to the ’60 5G5 brown.
The Fender serial number decoder currently supports all documented MIA, MIJ, MIM, MIK and MII formats with the exception of Custom Shop, Relic and Reissue instruments. Please note that fender serial numbers tend to overlap by at least a year, and thereby the date of your guitar can only be approximated.
The Fender serial number decoder currently supports all documented MIA, MIJ, MIM, MIK and MII formats with the exception of Custom Shop, Relic and Reissue instruments. Please note that fender serial numbers tend to overlap by at least a year, and thereby the date of your guitar can only be approximated.

So you need to figure out the year of production for your Fender guitar or bass. You're not alone. Fenders rank as the most frequently bought and sold instruments on Reverb, and finding a precise date of manufacture can be key to determining the value and specifics of an instrument.

The most important thing to keep in mind when dating a Fender is the highly modular nature of the designs. Like Henry Ford, part of Leo Fender's genius was in optimizing the company's production efficiency. His guitars were built en masse by an entire factory, not a single luthier toiling over one instrument at a time. Features like bolt-on necks and pickups wired into the pickguard all helped the Fender factory churn out guitar after guitar, day after day. This also means that various parts used on a particular guitar may have come from different points in time, so no single number can absolutely define when the instrument was built.

DATING YOUR MEXICAN-MADE FENDER INSTRUMENT from Fender.com. Fender began producing instruments in its Ensenada, Mexico, factory in 1990. Instruments made between 1990 and 2000 carry MN prefix serial numbers, with the M designating Mexico and the N designating the 1990s. ZZ = a number from 1 - 52 indicating the week of manufacture. Remember, your amp is newer than the newest component. For example, if you find pots from late ‘64 and transformers from early ’65, you can be pretty sure your amp is a 1965. COMMONLY USED FENDER EIA SOURCE CODES.

Instead, the best approach to dating a Fender is to combine indicators from the design of the instrument, the dates found on the neck and body, along with the serial number. Once you have the information you need, if you're interested in selling your Fender, you can use Reverb to get it in front of the largest audience of musicians in the world by clicking on this link.

Design Changes and Features

Perhaps the best place to start when dating your Fender is to get an approximate idea of the era based on the instrument's design and components. This can be a tall order for someone less versed in guitar history, but we do have some resources here on Reverb to help you out.

For starters, there's the

We also have some other blog posts related to Fender that can hopefully be of some help. There's A Brief History of the Stratocaster Part I and Part II that follows the evolution of the most popular Fender guitar of all. Similarly, take a look at Behold the Jazzmaster for general timeline of the history of everyone's favorite offset guitar. For Fender during the turning point era of the mid-'60s, check out Fender and the CBS Takeover.

Learn everything you need to know to choose the right Stratocaster for you.

Body and Neck Dates

Through much of Fender's production history, Fender workers would print or write a production date on both bodies and necks where the two pieces meet. These dates will tell when the original part was manufactured, but are not exact indicators of when the guitar was actually put together and finished.

Here is what the neck date and body date look like from a 1952 Telecaster:

If you're not comfortable removing the neck of a guitar to peek at the date marker, I encourage you to take it to a local tech or luthier.

I will also mention briefly pot-codes as a resource (numbers on the internal potentiometers of the guitar). These can definitely be useful in cases where no other numbers exist, but just tell when the pot itself was made. Who knows how long it was waiting in the Fender factory before finding its way into a Tele?

Serial Numbers

Like the body and neck dates, using serial numbers to date a Fender is not a sure bet. At many points in Fender's history, serial number usage overlapped again owing to the modular manner of production. Below we'll go into detail about the various serial number schemes employed by Fender as far back as 1950. There are certainly plenty of exceptions, so again, using serial numbers in conjunction with other dating methods is always the best bet.

Click on the links here to jump directly to the serial number style that matches your instrument:

The Early Years: 1950 - 1954

In the early years, Fender serial numbers schemes were specific to the model. Esquires, Broadcasters and Telecasters shared a serial number sequence, while the landmark Precision Bass had its own system. In this early period, the serial number can be found on the bridge of the instrument (see image).

Here are the rough serial number ranges for the early Esquires and Telecasters:

0001 to 0999	1950 - 1952
000 to 5300	1952 - 1954

And here are the ranges for the original Precision Basses:

161 to 357	1951
299 to 619	1952
0001 to 0160	1952
0161 to 0470	1951 - 1952
0475 to 0840	1952 - 1953
0848 to 1897	1953 - 1954

Also, for the first half or so of 1954, the inaugural run of Stratocasters had a distinct number sequence all under number 6000.

Classic Serial Numbers - 1954 - 1963

By mid-1954, Fender began using a universal serial number sequence for all its instruments. At this time, the location of the serial number also shifted from the bridge to the neckplate (the metal plate located on back of where the neck meets the body).

Here's how the serial numbers break down from 1954 to the beginning of 1963, though there are some areas of inconsistency in this era:

0001 to 7000	1954
7000 to 9000	1955
9000 to 17000	1956
17000 to 25000	1957
25000 to 34000	1958
34000 to 44000	1959
44000 to 59000	1960
59000 to 71000	1961
71000 to 93000	1962
93000 to 99999	1963

Learn everything you need to know to choose the right Telecaster for you.

L Series - The Transition Period of 1963 to 1965

At the very end of 1962 and into 1963, Fender changed to a system where serial numbers began with an 'L.' According to some accounts, the L was supposed to just be a 1 to mark the cross over into the 100,000 range from the previous scheme, but an L was used by mistake.

Here the range of the L-series serial used each year. Some of the earliest ones actually popped up in late 1962 as well:

0L00001 to L20000	1963
L20000 to L59000	1964
L59000 to L99999	1965

F Series - CBS Era 1965 - 1976

After the CBS purchase of Fender in 1965, the factory switched to a new serial sequence with numbers that continued the same general format used prior to the takeover. These are generally referred to as F series due the large Fender branded F on the neckplates of the era. This period also saw a switch from the orginal four-bolt neckplate of the '60s to a three-bolt neckplate in just one example of cost-saving costs introduced under CBS.

100000 to 110000	late 1965
110000 to 200000	1966
200000 to 210000	1967
210000 to 250000	1968
250000 to 280000	1969
280000 to 300000	1970
300000 to 340000	1971
340000 to 370000	1972

Fender Serial Numbers Codes