Fender serial numbers

We cover Fender serial numbers from 1976–present.

We track 21 serial-number formats across 21 eras for Fender.

It depends on the era. We document 5 placements for Fender instruments. See "Where to find the serial number" above for the exact spot for your instrument's era.

Yes. Some Fender serial numbers can't be dated from the number alone: Pre-1976 United States-made Fender instruments; American Vintage reissue instruments with a V prefix (charted 1982 to 2017); Fender acoustic guitars; Fender amplifiers; United States, US prefix past the charted run (US18 through US29); Korea, KC prefix past the charted run (KC13 through KC29); Korea, CN prefix with a 7, 8 or 9 (past the charted 1993 to 1996 run).

It names where the instrument was built, and usually when. M is Mexico (Ensenada), and the second letter gives the decade: MN the 1990s, MZ the 2000s, MX 2010 onward. On US-made instruments E covers the 1980s, N the 1990s and Z the 2000s, with a single digit after the letter for the year inside that decade, and US followed by a two-digit year from 2010. On Japanese-made instruments the letter is a series marker rather than a date, which is why those numbers read as more than one year.

Because that is what the number supports. Fender records some of its runs as multi-year spans (the JV and SQ prefixes, and every Japanese letter that was used twice), so the digits genuinely do not pick one year. Where a further question can settle it, such as the wording printed beside the serial on a Japanese-made instrument, the answer asks it. Where nothing can, the range stays.

No. A serial number dates an instrument; it does not identify or authenticate one. The prefix places the factory and the era, and on some US runs it narrows the line: DZ marks American Deluxe and CZ marks Classic. The model, the woods and the pickups are read off the instrument.

The decal wording changed in 1997, and the serial letters carried straight on across the change. That is why letters such as A, O, P, Q and S each name two separate spans, one under each wording. T is the letter that takes three: a Made in Japan run in the mid-1990s, and two more opening in 2007, one under each wording. So on T the wording narrows the reading without finishing it: say Crafted in Japan and one span is left, say Made in Japan and both of the Made in Japan runs stay. On every other letter the wording settles it outright, because the number cannot tell the spans apart on its own.