The guitars made between 1957 and the beginning of 1958 exhibited a curious sign "-", engraved on the inner face of the neck plate. #Fender guitar serial numbers serial number#Because of this, Stratocaster’s serial number leapt forward to about 5000 and the last 1954 Stratocasters reached the 6xxx series.Īt the end of 1955, a “0”was added in front of the four digits of the 8xxx series which, from that moment, became five-digit (08xxx). #Fender guitar serial numbers serial numbers#The serial number gradually grew, though in a way not perfectly linear with the production date, and reached, in December 1954, the series 12xx – however, given the Stratocasters arrived to the present days, it appears really unlikely that more than 1200 had been made! According to Duchossoir, in the same month Fender decided to unite the serial numbers of its solid body instruments (Telecaster, Esquire, Precision Bass and Stratocaster), which until that moment had distinct numbers, in a single numbering line. Most of the time the numbers were engraved on the top of the neck plate, but, between the end of the '50s and the early '60s, they could sometimes be found on the bottom. However, there are also Stratocasters with serial number on the neck plate even lower, but which are dated June or July, like David Gilmour’s 0001 Stratocaster, that is not the older one (date on the neck June 1954, date on the body 28 September 1954), though it is one of the first Stratocasters fabricated. The first documented serial numbers on the neck plate start from the 0246 (April 1954), 0287 (May 1954), 0240 (June 1954), and 0333 (July 1954) Stratocasters. In this case also there wasn’t a specific order of the serial numbers. Later, the serial number was moved on the neck plate, probably because the plastics of the first back plates broke easily or because the guitarists, in order to mount the strings, removed and sometimes lost it. Some, like the 19, the 008, the 771, just to name a few, are simply dated 1954 others also refer to the month, like the 0155 (March 1954), the 0035 (April 1954), the 0065 (June 1954), the 0207 (May 1954). Werner has compiled a list of instruments in which many Stratocasters with two, three or four serial numbers appear, although these numbers have been used on the very first Stratocasters without a specific order. According to them, the serial number engraved on the back plate was between 01 and indicated the first Stratocasters fabricated which yet weren’t those with the lowest serial number.Īnother famous collector, James Werner, supports another hypothesis, which currently seems to be the most accredited. Gruhn and Duchossoir claim that they were four-digit, even if the last digit wasn't perfectly aligned with the first three and sometimes it was slightly detached, suggesting that this was due to a machine that was not fully functional or that the Stratocaster serial number was born three digits and that the fourth was added in a second step. But not all the collectors agree on what the first serial numbers of 1954 were. The first Stratocasters featured a serial number on the plastic back plate which covered the springs of the vibrato unit.
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