Ebay / Fender date stamp

[arthurhenry]

There's currently a Tele bass on ebay with the same neck heel date stamp as mine - 23rd May '72. Given mass production methods, is this a particularly unlikely find, or would there have been hundreds produced on that day? It's nice to think it was made from the same hunk of maple as my bass neck, which would give me some confidence - if I could afford it!

Edited January 5, 2013 by arthurhenry

[4 Strings]

Given mass (and batch) production makes it more likely to occur doesn't it? Whether its from the same piece of wood or not is another thing.

If Fender serial numbers go up by, say, 100,000 a year, this is over 300 guitars a day, or one every minute and a half for an 8 hour day.

Still amazing to find one with the same day though!

Edited January 5, 2013 by 4 Strings

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='4 Strings' timestamp='1357398890' post='1922086']
Given mass (and batch) production makes it more likely to occur doesn't it? Whether its from the same piece of wood or not is another thing.

If Fender serial numbers go up by, say, 100,000 a year, this is over 300 guitars a day, or one every minute and a half for an 8 hour day.

Still amazing to find one with the same day though!
[/quote]

Also I believe Fender used to do a run of necks, then stack them up ready to be fitted at a later date. I have a Precision where everything seems to date to mid '73 except the neck which is week 03 1972.

[mart]

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1357375695' post='1921691']
There's currently a Tele bass on ebay with the same neck heel date stamp as mine - 23rd May '72. ...
[/quote]
Isn't that "23" just the code for that type of bass? Certainly all Strats around that time had a stamp starting with "22" because that was the code for a Strat neck. So you'll see eBay ads saying that it was date-stamped as, e.g. 22nd Jun 71, when actually "22 Jun 71" just means it was a Strat made in June 1971.

So this bass was probably just made in the same month as yours.

[mart]

This site http://home.provide.net/~cfh/fender.html is a mine of useful info about Fender serials.

[Fat Rich]

[quote name='mart' timestamp='1357414034' post='1922419']
Isn't that "23" just the code for that type of bass? Certainly all Strats around that time had a stamp starting with "22" because that was the code for a Strat neck. So you'll see eBay ads saying that it was date-stamped as, e.g. 22nd Jun 71, when actually "22 Jun 71" just means it was a Strat made in June 1971.

So this bass was probably just made in the same month as yours.
[/quote]

Good point, if the month is spelled out then the number before it is the model code.

If it's two groups of 4 numbers then you can work out the week, the year and the day of the week from the second group of 4 numbers. Although some Fender experts seem to count Sunday as day 1, others count Monday as day 1.... I don't know which is correct.