Significance of "A" in serial number

[KenS]

Greetings all,

Is there any significance to the addition of an "A" to the serial number (ex. G031797A)? I know that some guitars have it and some don't.

thanks
Ken

[DanDoulogos]

I've looked through about 6000 guitars in the registry, (prior to 1997) and found only four with an A suffixed to the GXXXXXX number:

G031532A - An ASAT deluxe with a Sparkle Red finish
G031765A - A Legacy Special with a Gold burst finish, Bird's eye maple neck, and a DFV
G031716A - A Black Legacy with a Rosewood Fretboard, and Alder body
G031777A - A Lake Placid Blue Metallic finish, rosewood Fretboard, and an Alder body,

Those plus the the one you mention (G031797A) which lists as a three tone burst ASAT, with a maple neck, alder body, and a saddle lock

I don't see any correlation between features and serial numbers. I'm guessing that whatever significance the A has, it isn't tied to the guitars themselves, but has to do with getting a batch of these serials numbers stamped with an A on them for whatever reason. Whether the A serves some accounting purpose, or was just an error in the batch they pressed, they used them anyway - probably got a discount for them too.

One thing I can say, these seem to be pretty rare, so that might be of interest to a collector.

Perhaps someone else has info?

[KenS]

Thanks!

The sunburst ASAT with the mentioned serial number is mine. Interesting that there are so few in the Registry.

Ken

[JagInTheBag]

i wonder if they are all Alder...

[DanDoulogos]

i wonder if they are all Alder...

I wondered the same thing.

The only year that came up on any of these (and it did 2 or 3 times) was 1993 - and all these were within a couple of hundred numbers of one another - suggesting that perhaps in 1993, they had some plates made with Serial numbers appended with an A for Alder - which they (hypothetically) would assign to alder body guitars.

The only problem with that is that I found several guitars made of alder from the same year that did not have an A suffixed to the Serial number.

That doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility, but it does seem to diminish the likelihood that this was the case. It may be that only a few hundred such tags were made, and that they were not consistently applied? Nothing would surprise me given the haphazard way serial numbers were generated and applied at the time.

So I wouldn't be surprised if the A stood for Alder, but I wouldn't be surprised either if it didn't. It'd be nice to have some definitive answer though.

[FZTNT]

I had thought the same thing too about the Alder body but who knows.

What is a Gold Burst finish? Can you show an example or are we talking about a Sun Burst?

Just wondering...

Tom

[KenS]

Just so we understand what we are talking about, I uploaded a picture of the neckplate of my guitar. Note that the "A" is below the rest of the number. I wonder if the small number of reports could be affected by the fact that a reasonable person could say that the "A" is part of the serial number (as I did) while another reasonable person could say that the "A" is not part of the serial number? Maybe it's a matter of interpretation.



Ken

[Elwood]

I've looked at hundreds if not thousands of black crinkle plates over the years.
That's the first time I've heard of these. Thanks for the pic.

[Craig]

Just so we understand what we are talking about, I uploaded a picture of the neckplate of my guitar. Note that the "A" is below the rest of the number. I wonder if the small number of reports could be affected by the fact that a reasonable person could say that the "A" is part of the serial number (as I did) while another reasonable person could say that the "A" is not part of the serial number? Maybe it's a matter of interpretation.



Ken

I think it might have been a neck plate stamping error. I have sent this thread to two of my G&L contacts to find out about these neck plates.
This also is the first time I have seen a neck plate like this.

Thanks for posting it and stay tuned for further details once I hear back from G&L.

[Craig]

Just so we understand what we are talking about, I uploaded a picture of the neckplate of my guitar. Note that the "A" is below the rest of the number. I wonder if the small number of reports could be affected by the fact that a reasonable person could say that the "A" is part of the serial number (as I did) while another reasonable person could say that the "A" is not part of the serial number? Maybe it's a matter of interpretation.



Ken

I think it might have been a neck plate stamping error. I have sent this thread to two of my G&L contacts to find out about these neck plates.
This also is the first time I have seen a neck plate like this.

Thanks for posting it and stay tuned for further details once I hear back from G&L.

Just heard back from Dave McLaren:

Hi Craig,

If I remember the story correctly, there were duplicates of some serial numbers in a run of stamped neck plates. The A is likely stamped here in the shop before being sent out to be powder coated. I found a page showing G031797A ASAT Sunburst MP #2 NV (no vibrato) completed on 5/25/93

Thanks, Craig.

Dave

Hope this helps.

[KenS]

Thanks Craig. I assume that the #2 refers to the neck style (which corresponds to my measurements) and the "MP" indicates a maple body. The date is just a little later than the neck and body dates as shown in my other thread (in which you commented that the wood was likely maple). So it looks like this mystery is solved!

Thanks so much,
Ken

[WitSok]

I would expect MP refers to maple fingerboard. Cool piece of history, there can't be many of these duplicate number plates that had to get an A stamp.

Congratulations, Dan

[KenS]

I'm sure you're correct, Dan. In my NGD thread, Craig identified the body wood as likely to be maple. I think that was freshen my mind when I read the spec list. If it is maple, then it is very rare from what I've read. Supposedly they stopped using maple in the Leo era.

Ken

[Elwood]

Supposedly they stopped using maple in the Leo era.Ken

At one point (1984?) , Leo decided Mahogany wasn't a good compliment to the G&L recipe
at the time. He ordered all the mahogany in the shop to be scrapped IIRC.
Maple was in pretty consistent use for the rest of the decade (and since).

I'd bet that is what you are referencing?

[KenS]

Supposedly they stopped using maple in the Leo era.Ken

At one point (1984?) , Leo decided Mahogany wasn't a good compliment to the G&L recipe
at the time. He ordered all the mahogany in the shop to be scrapped IIRC.
Maple was in pretty consistent use for the rest of the decade (and since).

I'd bet that is what you are referencing?

Actually I was going on a posting by Craig under the header "G&L Maple Bodied Guitars?" which said the following:

"As you move out of the mid 80's into the late 80's you see less and less maple and this was because
the price had risen dramatically over this window of time and a supply of lighter boards had dwindled
to the point that economically, the ash wasn't anymore an expensive alternative. The supply of good
low mass clear swamp ash has always been cyclical. That said, G&L made maple bodied guitars and
basses clear into late 1991.

After the BBE acquisition in the 1992 timeframe, maple and poplar bodies were discontinued and body
woods were ash or alder."

He goes on to mentioned maple-topped guitars and special runs - but the implication is by 1993, when my guitar was built, the use of maple had been discontinued due to cost and availability of lighter weight wood. That being said, my guitar weighs between 7.7 and 7.8 lbs - so it is light for maple.

Ken

[Elwood]

Thanks KenS,
I had forgotten about that bit of G&L history.

Elwood

[Craig]

Supposedly they stopped using maple in the Leo era.Ken

At one point (1984?) , Leo decided Mahogany wasn't a good compliment to the G&L recipe
at the time. He ordered all the mahogany in the shop to be scrapped IIRC.
Maple was in pretty consistent use for the rest of the decade (and since).

I'd bet that is what you are referencing?

Actually I was going on a posting by Craig under the header "G&L Maple Bodied Guitars?" which said the following:

"As you move out of the mid 80's into the late 80's you see less and less maple and this was because
the price had risen dramatically over this window of time and a supply of lighter boards had dwindled
to the point that economically, the ash wasn't anymore an expensive alternative. The supply of good
low mass clear swamp ash has always been cyclical. That said, G&L made maple bodied guitars and
basses clear into late 1991.

After the BBE acquisition in the 1992 timeframe, maple and poplar bodies were discontinued and body
woods were ash or alder."

He goes on to mentioned maple-topped guitars and special runs - but the implication is by 1993, when my guitar was built, the use of maple had been discontinued due to cost and availability of lighter weight wood. That being said, my guitar weighs between 7.7 and 7.8 lbs - so it is light for maple.

Ken

Here's the post that Ken is quoting from: G&L Maple bodied guitars?.
As mentioned in that post:

After the BBE acquisition in the 1992 timeframe, maple and poplar bodies were discontinued and body
woods were ash or alder. Of course, later on in the 90's body capping became available as well as plenty
of short-run or one-off type speciality species were used. There are some really cool one-off G&L's out
there for sure from all era's but BBE has cranked out some really gorgeous instruments with high end
woods from time to time.

So this 1993 ASAT could have been from a short-run or a "one-off" build, though the factory log entry info from Dave does not mention anything about the body wood.
This would imply that the body wood should be Alder, but it clearly is not an Alder body. And, yes, the log entry says MP #2 which is referring to a maple fretboard neck with a #2 profile.

Also, Maple bodies were brought back with the Rampage Jerry Cantrell Signature Model in 2009.

[KenS]

Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to track this down, Craig. I very much appreciate your expertise and your willingness to answer questions. Up until yesterday, I had no know ledge of G&L's history using Maple. Once again, GBL has educated me!

regards
Ken