Greetings from Mexico City!
First time at these forums (or Gibson.com for that matter... I guess I still can't afford one <_< ) as I'm in need of selling my '93 Epiphone Les Paul Custom (which I received back in January '94 courtesy of Aerosmith through a local radio station promotion) and this post seems to be the "authority" regarding serial numbers.
It says at the beginning that, and I quote,
To find the i.d. of your 1993 or most later models Epiphone either:
1. Use the "keys" and factory letter/number identifiers below -- note that for guitars made prior to 1993, the serial # assigned does not reveal the date or factory where made --
Now, the key words here are "prior to 1993" and those are the reason I decided to register and post this, because based on the serial of my Epi I think an update should be made clearly stating "Exceptions to different YEARS" or something along the lines of that, I dunno, maybe even just "PRIOR TO 1994", for there are serials that does not fit within the actual known identifiers and that does not reveal the month of manufacture... That is the case of my guitar serial number: S9318662 (see photos below); It doesn't include a MONTH "letter code" and it surely can't be a two-digit number code either (unless 1 = January but honestly, I doubt it).
'93 Epiphone Les Paul Custom
'93 Epiphone Les Paul Custom headstock (front)
'93 Epiphone Les Paul Custom headstock (back)
Who knows, maybe the answer lies in the fact that they just made some 18,662 guitars that year!
Also, the "model serial" will help Paruwi update the "Model number decoding" section over at EpiphoneWiki:
LP.CST.B
which obviously refers to a LES PAUL . CUSTOM . BLACK
Thanks in advance for any info you could provide on my serial besides being made by Samick (Korea) back in 1993.
P.D. By the way, let's suppose for some reason you're interested, How much would you pay for this already 20-year old Epiphone Les Paul Custom guitar?
