jaxson50 Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 http://www.guitardaterproject.org/about.aspx "The Guitar Dater Project aims to provide you with as much information as possible based on your Guitars' Serial number. To do this information is collected from several sources; books,websites,forums and knowledgeable contributors. With enough people contributing to the project we will be to find out what model guitars where made at which factories, approximate quality of factory craftsmanship and in the case of OEM's, who do they make guitars for." They also have a "Pot Code Reader"! Really cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstMeasure Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 I love that site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L5Larry Posted December 11, 2009 Share Posted December 11, 2009 The guitar dater project doesn't have a clue. They may claim to have collected their resourses from several sources, too bad they were the wrong ones. They spew more bad information (as gospel) than anyplace I've ever seen. Get off the www and actually go to a library, or maybe even a book store and buy PUBLISHED books on Gibson guitars by authors such as Tom Wheeler, Ian C. Bishop, A.R.Duchossoir, and others. When it comes right down to it, the only real problem in dating Gibson guitars comes from the era of 1967 through early 1975. Before and after those dates the serial numbers are fully documented. This is the era where it takes way more information than just a serial number to give any factual information on a Gibson guitar (thanks Norlin Corp). The problem is that during this period Gibson was selling more guitars then at any time previously in their history, and there are a ton of them still out there. As for the pot code reader, anybody can do it (XXXYYWW). XXX is the manufactures code (usually 137 for CTS), YY is the year of manufacture, and WW is the week of the year they were made...It's not rocket science! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Plains Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 I love that site. Here, enter these serial numbers and tell me what year these guitars were made. CS72400 971200 They're both real Gibson serial numbers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveinspain Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 http://www.guitardaterproject.org/about.aspx "The Guitar Dater Project aims to provide you with as much information as possible based on your Guitars' Serial number. To do this information is collected from several sources; books' date='websites,forums and knowledgeable contributors. With enough people contributing to the project we will be to find out what model guitars where made at which factories, approximate quality of factory craftsmanship and in the case of OEM's, who do they make guitars for." They also have a "Pot Code Reader"! Really cool. [/quote'] Sorry that web has never worked for me... Every serial number I have plugged into it came up as a pre 1975 guitar or something like that or just came up empty. I have lots of Gibsons and they have never been correct on any of them new or old. Then it made me think it was actually a scam to collecting real Gibson serial numbers to be used on fake Gibsons in conjunction with a plot to flood the market with fakes, undermine the US economy and close Gibson for good.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoConMan Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 Jax, I'm not gonna pile on here. But I will say that Guitar Dater Project is best viewed as a reference to compare with others you find. I've been very disappointed in their lack of accuracy. Think of them as Wikipedia for guitars.... :-) That being said, I know for a fact that Gibson themselves are often unable to provide concrete data on their guitars due to incomplete, lost, destroyed, dumped, or simply wrong information in their own archives. Their maddening serial number protocol and irregular changes may serve to foil fakes, but it's insane otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaxson50 Posted December 12, 2009 Author Share Posted December 12, 2009 Well EXCUSE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocketman Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 Think of them as Wikipedia for guitars.... I agree. I don't think it does much more than the simple serial numbers, which are pretty standard to decode. It's able to "identify" my Les Pauls, but it's clueless on my 2009 (!) ES-339, which has a CS serial number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaxson50 Posted December 12, 2009 Author Share Posted December 12, 2009 I agree. I don't think it does much more than the simple serial numbers' date=' which are pretty standard to decode. It's able to "identify" my Les Pauls, but it's clueless on my 2009 (!) ES-339, which has a CS serial number. [/quote'] What I found interesting on Guitar Dater was the ability to identify foreign makers and thier location. Which wouldn't apply to Gibson (I hope it never will). So if your looking at a Epi you could tell if it were made in Japan, China, South Korea, or Romania. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pohatu771 Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 Guitar Dater Project is great as long as you're aware of its limitations. The most common mistake is that people don't bother to check any of the necessary boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazzboy Posted December 12, 2009 Share Posted December 12, 2009 It has it pluses and minuses. The best way to get info on how old a guitar is to contact the manufacture themselves and hope to hell they have kept the archive if update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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