In 1887, Yamaha (then Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd.) began producing reed organs in Japan. The Yamaha Corporation has grown to become the world’s largest manufacturer of a full line of musical instruments. Guitars since 1966.

Check the neck joint of the guitar if you can't find the serial number anywhere else. Look at the first letter of the serial number, which indicates which year the instrument was made. Yamaha's guitars serial numbers repeat every 10 years, so additional research may be needed to find the exact year your guitar was made. The letter 'H' is used for years ending in one, beginning with 1961. With acoustic guitars, the serial number is usually written somewhere in the sound cavity of the guitar. If you want to know the production year of your Yamaha guitar,you can decipher it with the serial number decoder, or find it in explanation about the dating system below. Dating a Yamaha Guitar; Permissions of tmp and cache folder in rails for NGinx (To resolve access denied) MySQL 5.1 Install on WIndows 7 64 bit with Ruby on Rails (RailsInstaller) Twitter Updates @Authy Please check your support email. I have access to someone elses tokens. Yamaha FG Serial Numbers, Interior Markings, and Labels – 1966 to 1981 The purpose of this article is to solve the mystery of the early Yamaha FG serial numbers, internal markings, and labels. And to be able to fairly accurately determine when they were made.

Dating Yamaha guitars

Note serial numbers recycle every 10 years.

Reference books

Guitar catalogs

1960s Acoustic CatalogRogerThurman

Acoustic catalogs 70,72,78 and more t-shiga.com/sub7-5-1.htm

1980, 1981, 1985 brochures.yokochou.com

2006 Acoustic, Electric and Bass guitar catalog 2006 Guitar and Bass

AcousticYamaha Acoustic Guitar Serial Number Lookup

2012 Guitar catalog 2012 Acoustic guitar catalog 2012 Classical guitar catalog

Images from eBay:

Red label 1969-1971.

1970-72

Yamaha Acoustic Guitar Serial Number Decoder

Black label 1974

Orange Label 1975-1978

Images Custom instruments and wiring diagram courtesy of Ben van Dyk Jan 2015.

G-50A label – note no Nippon Gakki on the label – from 1970-1972. According to YamahaAustralia all G-50A were made in Japan. [Source: Nigel Barker, Sydney Feb 2015

WANTED – Data from your vintage Yamaha FG guitars. See later in the post.

See Yamaha FG Serial Numbers, Interior Markings, and Labels – 1966 to 1981for the results of this search. My search expanded to also include the Taiwan FG’s.

My latest interest is decoding the mystery of the 6 & 7 digit serial numbers. It’s widely known that the 8 digit serial numbers start with the year as the first number. But the 6 & 7 digit numbers (located on the neck block) are just sequential numbers used by all the guitars they built, not just the FG’s. I’ve also found there are internal date codes that will reveal when the guitar was made.

Serial Number located on the neck block.

Yamaha Guitars Serial Number Lookup

Date Code located on one of the interior sides of the guitar.

I’ve started a list of guitars I’ve found (including 3 of mine) with the model number, the serial number, and the date code, which will allow the 6 & 7 digit serial numbers to be grouped into a range for each year, allowing any 6 or 7 digit serial number to be cross referenced to the year it was made.

Epiphone Guitar Serial Number Lookup

On YouTube I found a guy in Japan who’s posted short videos of many vintage FG guitars, with the year, model number, partial serial numbers, and in a most cases the internal date code. He’s obviously used the internal date codes to determine the years. Ballad Maker on Youtube

With this, and other data I’ve been finding, I’ve discovered even though Yamaha says the first Red Label models imported in the US where in 1968, I’ve found many Red Label FG guitars made in 1967. I’m also tracking the Green Label FG’s, the earliest models (1966-67) only made in Japan, that share the same pool of serial numbers. I’m looking for the transition between the Green and Red labels. I’ve also found the Green Label FG’s have a different truss rod cover, with “Reinforced Neck” on it, very different than the one you normally see. That cover made it onto the earliest FG’s imported into the US, before changing to the familiar one.

Truss Rod Cover on Green Label and very early Red Label FG’s.

Regular Truss rod Cover used on Red Label FG’s.

WANTED – Could you please email me at YamahaVintageFG@gmail.com with the following data from your vintage Green and Red label Nippon Gakki FG guitars that have serial numbers less than 8 digits, located on the neck block? I have over 350 serial numbers so far, but only 38 of those have the internal date code. I’m also collecting data on Taiwan made FG’s, up to 1981.

Model number.

Label color and type. See Yamaha FG Serial Numbers, Interior Markings, and Labels – 1966 to 1981for more information.

Sql developer license cost. Serial number on brace and neck block.

Yamaha Acoustic Guitar Serial Number Lookup

Internal date code (I use flashlight and a cheap USB endoscope with my cell phone, or my cell phone camera if the strings are off.) This is very important to establish the date range of the serial numbers.

Yamaha Acoustic Guitar Serial Number Lookup Model

If it has the old style “Reinforced Neck” truss rod cover.

Any other information you’d like to share about the guitar.