Dating a Guitar to locate the year it was made - Locate the year your guitar was made to find out the possible value depending on condition.Many vintage guitar owners value guitar dating and guitar serial number data to date their electric and acoustic guitars.FYYMMRRRR F= Factory code (this can be 2 letters as well) YY= year of manufacture (this can also be just 1 digit for '90s models) MM= month of manufacture R= ranking number (may be more or less digits, not necessarily indicative of total units produced) Example - S02021234 was issued in Feb. Another code used on some current Epiphone models FYYMRRRR F= Factory code YY=Year of manufacture M= This will be a letter code corresponding to the month (A=January, B=February, etc...) RRRR= ranking number Example - R03D0263 was issued in April 2003.



Vintage epiphone dating
After two years, the company became known as The House of Stathopoulo.
Just after the end of World War I, the company started to make banjos.
While dating your electric guitar or acoustic guitar can be tricky, the places listed below should give you an idea of the date for your vintage guitar through its serial number.
There are many factors that can affect the value of your vintage guitar.
2) This flyer was dated to 1931 by some researchers (Fisch, Gruhn, Carter). Furthermore, guitarist Carl Kress who was prominently featured in the 1932 catalog is no longer mentioned (obviously because Kress had become an endorser of Gibson by 1933).
There are two slightly different versions of this flyer, the later one stating changes to the models Blackstone (increased price , "brown mahogany") and Olympic (increased price ).
This timeline provides a chronology of milestones, developments and changes related to Epiphone instruments over the years 1931 to 1956.
The timeline focuses on general aspects, while detailed info about individual models and their development can be found on the Models page. Note: The quoted serial numbers (SN) refer to the first/last examples of a model/feature as documented in our Registry – i.e.
Dont know a lot about these numbers so take that with a pinch of salt, you could try posting your question here: and goto the forum link. I would guess the guitar is either a copy or eipiphone had samples made by prospective suppliers in the late eighties.
Due to the 88 at the front I think it might be an early sample from the company whom started manufacture in the 90's for Epiphone.
Epiphone is an American musical instrument manufacturer founded by Anastasios Stathopoulos, currently based in Nashville, Tennessee.