Hello From Winnipeg

New to G&L Guitars looking for some info in serial #

Welcome. Please show us some pics and provide the serial number. No promises but you can get close on some of the older G&Ls and real close on the newer ones. Did it come with any documentation at all.

Welcome again and please post pics. Check the "read this first" post above for how to post pics and other useful stuff.

Tom

A fellow Winnipeg-er! Welcome to the forum! I've only been here for a few months, but it's the best resource online for info and discussion re G&L guitars.

I was a little surprised to learn that, unlike other vendors who stamp the date that the serial number is assigned right into the serial number itself, G&L pre-stamped the neck plates with arbitrary serial numbers, which were assigned arbitrarily rather than serially (from what I have read, they would reach into a bin of plates, and whatever came up in their hand became the serial number for that guitar.

That means that for some guitars the serial number can only gives you an approximate year - though if you contact G&L with the serial number, they can look up that number and tell you when the guitar was shipped. I'd trust anything Craig had to say on that account, but I think I am summarizing it properly.

If you're doing homework before a purchase, mention the serial number and others here may be able to help (though you may be able to mine the info yourself from the Registry).

Welcome Doug! As Dan mentioned USA guitars do not have dates formatted into the serial number. And it is true older G&L the numbers were not used sequentially. What I have done is typically searched the registry looking for numbers in a range of +/- 200 to get an idea of when it was made. The body and the neck should have date stamps, this is the only way to really narrow it down. I've been to reluctant to pull the neck off my SC-3. But based on the registry and the fact it had "new for '85" advertising materials in the case (and it is second body style) I am assuming is either late '84 or early '85.

The import Tribute series does have date information formatted into the serial numbers.

Cheers and welcome,
Dan