Dating a Yamaha Guitar

April 1, 2013 by mdreeling 1 Comment

In order to date my recently acquired Yamaha AES1500, i needed to wade through Yamaha’s documentation

They have two links which i found handy

One for Electric Guitars, Arch-tops and Basses

http://faq.yamaha.com/us/en/article/musical-instruments/guitars-basses/el-guitars/802/4095/

and one for Acoustic and Classical Guitars…

Click to access AcousticGuitarSerialNumberSystems.pdf

These document contains almost all of the most well known serial number formats – all documented for you – thanks Yamaha!

The basis of all Yamaha serial numbers is the following alphabetic legend which i have excerpted from the document, with H thru P being 1 to 9 and Q being zero. X, Y and Z are just 10,11 and 12 (?)

Anyway, all you need to do is find your pattern somewhere in the larger list of serial number formats and then try and match it up with some information that you already know about your guitar..

So for instance..

• My serial number is QPH031I
• I know the AES1500 was manufactured in Japan
• I know the AES1500 was manufactured between 1991 and 2009 before being discontinued
• My pattern is 3 letters and 3 digits followed by one letter

The closest (in fact exact :-)) match is System #E10 from the first link – shown below

So with that in mind, i have

QPH031I

inferring

Q=2000P=9 (2009)
H=1 (January)
031=31st Unit
I=Internal Code

So i’m pretty sure my Guitar was the 31st AES1500 built in January 2009!

Hope this helps other folks work this out – i mean its simple really – but it never hurts to write it out 🙂

[Image courtesy of Yamaha]

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