Dating gibson electric guitars

It is hard to imagine today, but in the early 1960’s having an electric guitar in your home was rare.

In fact, it was likely that your parents were steering you in the direction of accordion lessons. The Beatles – and of course others – stopped all that.

Suddenly, electric guitars were #1 on every kids Christmas list.

Companies that had been manufacturing Accordions for 20 years, retooled for electric guitars.

The second type of serial numbers used started with an A prefix and ran from 1947 to 1961. When production of solid body guitars began, an entirely new serial number system was developed.

Below: Perhaps my favorite 1960’s guitars, the Domino’s.

While physical condition can be assessed with a careful inspection, rarity and date of manufacture are not always easy to determine.

But the serial number on a Gibson can tell you when the guitar was made.

With that information, you can determine its rarity and, ultimately, its worth.

GIBSON SERIALIZATION Identifying Gibson instruments by serial number is tricky and at sometimes impossible.