What Year Explorer is this ??

[GaryGuitarDude]

I have owned this explorer for almost 20 yrs and its been refinished and modified with kahler hardware and schaller tuners, but i would really like to find out what year it is. not interested in selling it or the specific value, just which model it is and what year. i think when it was refinished, the serial number decal was sanded off the neck. can you kindly tell me from these pictures what year Gibson Explorer this is? I have about 20 pictures, just cant upload them all.

Thanks so much.

 

[pippy]

Well, that's really not much to go on is it?

Explorers have been released in a great number of years since the first 're-issues' in 1976 and without more useful info we are not going to be able to help you very much. There were many changes in design details from year to year so you could try to narrow it down by comparing yours with what info there already is out there in internetland. Even the Wiki entry has some good pointers.

FWIW according to some sources the 'closed' b and o letters on the peghead logo suggest a pre-1984 period but exceptions are numerous. Does it have the original potentiometers for the vol / tone knobs? If so then these might be one way of finding-out a rough year as all USA-made pots are stamped with a date of manufacture (accurate to one week).

Pip.