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.įor starters, there's the Reverb Price Guide which has thousands of entries with pictures and details on various guitars and other gear. 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. 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. 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. Features like bolt-on necks and pickups wired into the pickguard all helped the Fender factory churn out guitar after guitar, day after day. His guitars were built en masse by an entire factory, not a single luthier toiling over one instrument at a time. The Fender Stratocaster isn't just a guitar. Establishing the Value of Your Vintage Guitar Fender/Guild. Before 1977 Fender guitars hd a serial number on the bridgeplate. If the guitar has a Fender Stratocaster decal on the headstock but no. The 'American Standard/Series' will have a serial number. Thanks for any info! Buying a Fender Stratocaster. How much is my fender stratocaster worth? The serial number is Z0126764. Like Henry Ford, part of Leo Fender's genius was in optimizing the company's production efficiency. The most important thing to keep in mind when dating a Fender is the highly modular nature of the designs. 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. So you need to figure out the year of production for your guitar or bass.