Here's a good way to decipher the clues. The original Emperor IIs had maple tops, they changed to spruce tops in 1996. My guess is that JP wanted spruce but they decided to use up the leftover maple Emperor bodies. If yours has a maple top, it's one of those crossover models. If it's a spruce top, you're serial # makes no sense at all.
nice. can i take a close up picture and you tell me if its a maple or spruce top? cuz i have no idea what its made off.