Want to know how to date your Gibson guitar by serial number? Then you’re in the right place.
Just enter the number below, hit the ‘Decode’ button and our lookup tool will tell you the year your guitar is from (sometimes even down the exact day), the country it was made in, and the manufacturing plant.
Unfortunately, our records are not complete enough to provide precise dating information for many Fender acoustic guitars from the early 1960s through the 1970s and 1980s. Although the tables below are as accurate as possible, serial numbers of these acoustic guitars have never been archived and are of no assistance when attempting to date. Gibson Serial Numbers 1975-Present This section is designed to assist in dating and/or identifying instruments manufactured or distributed by Gibson Guitar Corp. Please note that most of this information relates to serial numbers used from 1975 to present. Gibson USA, Gibson Acoustic, Gibson Memphis.
- After serial number 170000, the keytops, now with cushioning, are flipped 180 degrees to resemble the more common 1950s Olympia keys, though the function keys remain the same, and body pieces changed slightly although the styling remained the same.
- YEAR APPROXIMATE LAST SERIAL NUMBER PRODUCED 1953 1000-1500 1954 1500-2200 1955 2200-3000 1956 3000-4000 1957 4000-5700 1958 5700-8300 1959 -1969 This chart displays the first and last serial numbers of guitars produced in each year from 1960 to 1969 (inclusive); no corresponding model names or numbers are available.
You can add any model of Gibson guitar, whether that’s a Les Paul, a Flying V, or a Hummingbird.
Olympia Guitars Serial Numbers
Where to Find the Serial Number on Your Gibson Guitar?
In contrast to finding Fender serial numbers (which can be in a variety of places), locating Gibson serial numbers is more straightforward.
- On electrics, they are almost always on the back of the headstock, at the top.
- On acoustic guitars, they’re usually in the soundhole.
On the rare occasion it isn’t there, you can check the pots where you’ll find the date (unless the pots haven’t been swapped out at a later date, that is).
Finding the location of the serial number is easy enough on a Gibson. Deciphering the serial number is another job entirely, and made more complicated because they chopped and changed the naming convention so much over the years.
Rather than try and explain all the nuances to their system, my advice is to try the decoder above which will check your number against their database.
Good luck!
Search Guitar By Serial Number
Guitar Lookup By Serial Number
For example, I just checked my Eastman acoustic guitars - listed in the order purchased, year matches the certificate date:
E40D (2016) is 1465xxxx
E40OM (2017) is 1375xxxx
ACTG1 (2017) is 1655xxxx
E20OMSB (2017) is 1365xxxx
E20D (2017) is 1375xxxx
E40D (2017) is 1375xxxx
With the exception of the travel guitar, all of the SN begin with 13 or 14. But of those, my oldest guitar has the highest SN (1465xxxx). I'll edit this post later with exact certificate dates. The third digit *almost* ties to the year --- if I assume the E20OM was assigned in 2016, but not given a certificate until April 2017 (and again, the travel guitar outlier).
If others want to post their model, SN#, and certificate date here... then maybe we can figure out a pattern. In the meantime, maybe I'll email Eastman for more insight. I'll find that UBGF post and copy the contents here for easy reference.
Also, I posted this in the Acoustic section b/c I don't own any Eastman electric guitars (yet!) to confirm if the SN batches are the same. We can move this to General Chatter, if we want to tackle electric SNs here, as well.