All brands
Where to find the serial number on your instrument
The number is in one of four places, and which one depends on the brand and the era. Here is where to look on each of the six brands we cover, and what to read instead when the number you find carries no year.
Serial numbers don't sit in one agreed place. A Martin carries one on the neck block, the same spot in every era we chart; a Fender has carried one on the neck plate, the bridge plate and both faces of the headstock, depending on the decade and the country. Copy a number off the wrong part and the answer you get is about the wrong part.
Four places to look
Work through them in this order. The first two are both on the headstock, so start there and turn the instrument over as you go.
On the front of the headstock. A United States Fender from 1976 on is stamped there, beneath the logo and above or beside the string trees. The same number moved to the back partway through the run, so check both faces before deciding it's missing.
On the back of the headstock. A Gibson from 1977 on is die-stamped into the back, with MADE IN USA stamped below it. On a Japanese-made Fender, read the words printed or stamped beside the number before you read the number itself: Made in Japan or Crafted in Japan decides which era it belongs to. An Ensenada-built Mexican Fender is here as well: Fender's Mexican dating article names no position at all, and Fender's general answer for its guitars and basses is the back of the headstock or the neck plate. Korean instruments sit there too, behind CN, VN, KC or KV, and Indonesian ones behind an I and one or two factory letters. So does a PRS set-neck electric, on a decal or stamped into the wood, and a PRS SE, printed.
On a plate at the back of the body. A Fender from before 1976 is on the neck plate, or, on an early Telecaster or Esquire, on the bridge plate. The Japanese-built Squiers of 1982 to 1984 are stamped into the neck plate as well, with the wording on the headstock decal telling them apart from the later letter-prefix runs. On a Taylor SolidBody, look at the bridge adjustment access panel on the back.
Inside the body. Sight down through a Martin's soundhole toward the neck joint: the number is stamped into the neck block, with the model designation alongside it. A Taylor acoustic from 1999 on is on the paper label inside; a Taylor from 1998 or earlier is stamped on the heel block, visible by looking deep into the soundhole toward the neck joint. A PRS acoustic is read through the soundhole, and a Taylor T5, T5z or T3 is usually visible through the bass-side f-hole.
Brand by brand
Martin — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| All years | Stamped into the neck block, the wooden block where the neck meets the body. Sight down into the soundhole to read it; the model designation sits alongside. |
Taylor — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| Acoustics from 1999 onward | Printed on the paper label inside the body, read by looking through the soundhole. |
| Acoustics from 1998 and earlier | Stamped on the heel block, visible by looking deep into the soundhole toward the neck joint. |
| T5, T5z and T3 electrics | Usually visible through the bass-side f-hole. |
| SolidBody electrics | On the bridge adjustment access panel on the back of the instrument. |
Fender — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| United States, 1976 onward | Stamped on the front or back of the headstock, beneath the Fender logo and above or beside the string trees. Earlier years (the S and E prefixes) occasionally carry it on the neck plate at the back of the body. |
| Mexico, 1990 onward | Stamped on the back of the headstock, or on the neck plate at the back of the body. Fender's Mexican dating article names no position at all, and Fender's general answer for its guitars and basses is the back of the headstock or the neck plate, so look there first and turn the instrument over if the number is not where you expect. |
| Japan (Made in Japan and Crafted in Japan) | On the back of the headstock, with the words 'Made in Japan' or 'Crafted in Japan' printed or stamped above or beside the serial. That wording is what tells the two eras apart. |
| Korea and Indonesia, 1993 onward | On the back of the headstock, prefixed with the factory letter or pair of letters. |
| Pre-1976 United States | On the neck plate at the back of the body, or, for early Telecasters and Esquires, on the bridge plate. Not serial-decodable; dated from internal stamps and pot codes instead. |
Gibson — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| 1977 onward | Impressed (die-stamped) into the back of the headstock, with 'MADE IN USA' stamped below it. Pre-1977 instruments carry the number in the same place but without the standard 8-digit coding, and a six-digit number of that kind is not a reliable date on its own. |
PRS — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| Set-neck electric guitars (all years) | Printed on the back of the headstock, on a decal or stamped into the wood. |
| Acoustic instruments | Printed inside the body, read by looking through the soundhole. |
| SE series instruments | Printed on the back of the headstock. |
Squier — where the number is
| Era or model | Where the number is |
|---|---|
| Japan-made Squier (JV and SQ, 1982 to 1984) | Stamped on the neck plate at the back of the body, with 'Made in Japan' or 'Squier' wording on the headstock decal. The JV and SQ prefixes are what set these apart from the later letter-prefix runs. |
| Korea-made Squier (CN, VN, KC, KV), 1993 to 2012 | Printed on a sticker on the back of the headstock where the neck joins the body, or stamped into the neck plate, prefixed with the factory letter or pair of letters. |
Try the number you found
Enter the serial as it appears on the instrument.
With no brand picked, the shape of the number is matched against all six brands. Where only one brand's formats can take it, that's where you land; where more than one can, the answer asks you which brand it is rather than choosing for you.
When the number you found is not one we can date
Some numbers are in the right place and still carry no year. Where that happens, position stops being evidence at all, because the same spot on the same brand carried dateable numbers in other eras.
A Fender from before 1976 is the clearest case: the earliest S and E headstock numbers sometimes sit on the neck plate as well, so a number on the plate doesn't by itself put the instrument before 1976. The markings that do date one are all out of sight, on the backs of the pots, on the butt end of the neck heel once the neck is off, and in the neck pocket underneath it. Our answer names the era and hands those checks back.
A Gibson serial of six digits raises the same problem from the other direction. It sits in exactly the place on the headstock where the modern coding sits, so position confirms nothing at all. That era has a guide of its own.
Two Fender categories carry numbers that were never dating tools. An acoustic's serial was never archived, so the instrument is placed from its model, its woods and its bracing; an amplifier is dated from the tube chart glued inside its cabinet, which carries a stamped date code of its own, not from the number on the chassis. Neither one reaches that answer through the box above, because auto-detect routes on the format tables and these two are carve-outs from a brand rather than formats inside one. Ask for Fender by name instead. The brand-scoped box on the Fender guide names which of the two you have and what to read on it.
Some of the most useful dating evidence on an instrument sits somewhere other than the serial. The stamp on the back of a potentiometer carries a date of its own, and it often settles what the serial cannot. How to read a pot code.
The brand-by-brand table is rendered straight from the location fields in our own brand tables, the same fields each brand's page renders, so those two surfaces can't drift apart. The four groupings above it are written from those same fields rather than rendered from them, and they group by place, so a brand can appear under one heading while its row covers more ground than the heading itself does. Where the two disagree about a face or a placement, the instrument in your hands settles it, so check both faces before you take either as final. Each brand table cites the manufacturer's published dating documentation where one exists, with independent specialist references alongside it; the date in the stamp at the top is when we last checked them.