Gibson guitar serial numbers are, like a lot of serial number systems from guitar manufacturers, a complicated beast.

Right: 1977 Gibson decal serial number applied on a Les Paul Artisan. Gibson Serial Numbers, 1975-1977. All models, decal, 2 digit prefix followed by 6 digits. The decal can also states the model name/number. Prefix Year- - 99 19 06 1977 1976 Gibson serial number with '00' prefix. Gibson Serial Numbers, 1977 to present.

1. Gibson introduced a similar student model, the Skylark (EH-500), in 1956, and by 1959 it was apparent that Gibson did not need two student-grade electric lap steels. The BR-9 was discontinued in that year, while the Skylark held on until 1968.
2. Jul 10, 2018 1957 Gibson Skylark Lap Steel. This was an entry level steel guitar but ever so cool.
3. Gibson Skylark EH-500 Lap Steel Electric Guitar (1964), ser. #231528, period black hard shell case. Retrofret Vintage Guitars. Brooklyn, NY, United States.
4. Vintage Gibson Skylark Korina Lap Steel Guitar with Original HSC - $895 (Phoenix Northwest) Really nice, early 60’s, Vintage Gibson Skylark Korina Lap Steel Guitar. Made with Korina wood for maximum tone.This guitar sounds great! The tone is very warm and musical.

But with a little bit of research you should be able to find out when your Gibson was built and in some cases where.

There are a number of distinct time periods for Gibson’s serial numbers, where the systems differed. There are also other ways of determining the age of your instrument, including FON’s and things such as logo designs.

FON’s

In addition to serial numbers older Gibson guitars also had Factory Order Numbers (FONs) imprinted. In some cases, in fact, only FONs were used and there was no serial number (this was mainly for early low-end models).

FON’s (and serial numbers) on Gibson guitars are usually found either on the inside of the back of the guitar (inside the sound hole) or on the back of the headstock).

FON’s were used from 1902 to 1961.

Other Identifiers

There are some other ways you can get an idea of the age of your Gibson.

Logo

Gibson’s logo has been largely unchanged since 1947 but before that time the logo changed a bit, so you can use that to help identify the era your guitar was built.

Made in USA

From 1970 onwards a “Made in U.S.A” was engraved below the serial number. This can help determine if your guitar was from the 1960s or 1970s (some guitars during those 2 decades had the same serial number).

Other Features

You can also use other features to help identify the time period of your instrument. Some of these include:

• Volutes: Extra bits of wood carved into the headstock where it meets the neck. These were starting to be added in 1969 – so if your instrument didn’t have them then it’s likely to be pre-1969
• Things such as tuners, capstans, plates can also give you clues – though remember that an older instrument could have had these items replaced so it’s not a definite clue.

Gibson Skylark Lap Steel Serial Numbers Lookup

Serial Numbers

O.k. so why discuss all these other aspects, when this post is supposed to be about serial numbers!

Good question – and the answer is simply that the serial number system used up until 1977 wasn’t the easiest or most reliable system – so you may not be able to accurately determine anything about your guitar using the serial number alone.

O.k., let’s take a look at the different time periods of serial numbers from Gibson Guitars.

1902-1947

The following serial numbers apply just to acoustic guitars.

During this period, the system was actually relatively simple. Guitars were just given the next available number.

The chart below shows the year that relates to the serial number. The serial numbers shown represent the approximate last serial number for that year. The first serial number for acoustic guitars was 100.

1947 to 1961

Once the serial numbers hit 99999, Gibson decided to change to a new system, rather than go into 6 digits.

The new system used a letter to prefix the numbers. The first guitar in this new system was A 100 which was in April of 1947.

1961 to 1970

A new system, introduced in 1961, was made to cover all of the instruments in Gibson’s line (not just acoustic guitars). This was pretty poorly done though (IMO) and meant that some serial numbers were reused so a certain serial number could be from a guitar from different years.

1970 to 1975

It didn’t get any less confusing during this time either. The biggest telling factors for guitars from this period, as opposed to the guitars from 1961 to 1969 is the “Made in U.S.A” that can be found on guitars from 1970 onwards.

6 Digit Serial numbers were still used so a lot of the same numbers were also used on 1960s models. To make matters even more confusing, there wasn’t really an order for these serial numbers – so you could have something from 1975 that started with a 1 and something from 1972 that started with a 9.

Some serial numbers also used a letter (just because?)

1975 to 1977

Thing get a little simpler. These serial numbers started with either “96” “00” or “06” with the 96 representing 1975, the 00 representing 1976 and 06 representing 1977. Not sure why these numbers were used, but at least it was uniform!

1977 to Present

Finally, in 1977 a much more logical serial number system was introduced.

This is an 8 digit system and follows the format YDDDYPPP.

• The YY represent the year the guitar was made
• The DDD is the day of the year that the guitar was made
• The PPP represents the factory the guitar was made in and the number of production

So, for example, let’s take the serial number 80351045.

• This guitar was built in 1981 – 80351045 – remember in the format that the year is the 1^st and 5^th
• This guitar was built on the 35^th day of the year – so this would have been February 4^th – 80351045
• This guitar was built in the Kalamazoo factory and it was the 45^th instrument stamped that day.

So this serial number represents the 45th guitar built on February 4, 1981 in the Kalamazoo factory.

Factories

The Kalamazoo factory operated until 1984 and guitars made in that factory from 1977 to 1984 had the last 3 digits (the production number) that were between 001 and 499.

Guitars built in the Nashville factory from 1977 to 1989 used the production numbers 500-999.

For example, the serial number 81457556 – would be May 25^th, 1987 and the 56^th guitar built in the Nashville factory. The first guitar built that day would have the production number 500.

Guitars built in the Nashville Factory from 1990 onwards have production numbers 300-999 – so the first guitar produced that day would have the production number 300.

The Montana factory uses production numbers 001-299 and this was from 1989, when that factory was opened.

Exceptions

There are guitars that will be exceptions within all of these time periods.

If your guitar doesn’t seem to fit within any of these systems, check out the resources below to see if you can decipher your serial number.

Thanks for Reading

I hope this helped you to decipher your (often complicated) Gibson serial number.

Photo Credit

Gibson Skylark Lap Steel Serial Numbers Chart

By Henry Zbyszynski from Cambridge, USA (P1060339) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Image credit: Reynolds Buick GMC Isuzu, West Covina, California.

What’s in a name?

Ah the Gibson Skylark… could there be a guitar amplifier with a sweeter name? It conjures images of songbirds, flying in blue skies above green meadows; or perhaps of stylish vintage Buick cars, driven by equally stylish chauffeurs. Or perhaps, to some, sweet memories of the 1960s, when they were playing their favorite Byrds or Jefferson Airplane tunes through a little Gibson Skylark amplifier. Admittedly, I belong to neither category, but I must say that I had great fun restoring and playing a 1968 Gibson GA-5 Skylark amplifier.

Skylark lineage

Until the late 1960s, the Skylark was probably Gibson’s most popular and most produced amplifier. As with almost any vintage Gibson amplifier, many different incarnations of it exist. There is, for starters, the 1957 GA-5 Skylark, which was in fact a restyled Gibson GA 5 Les Paul junior amp. The Les Paul junior, in turn, was a single ended, 6V6GT powered amp and almost identical to the Fender Champ (5C1 circuit). But back to the 1957 Skylark: this little amp came clad in blonde tolex instead of the Les Paul junior’s tweed and abandoned the previous ‘TV’ styling. Them, from 1962 on, the more modern and higher-powered ‘Crestline’ Skylark made its appearance. This had a slanted front/top control panel, brown tolex and grille, 2 x 6AQ5 output tubes and on-board tremolo. A good impression of the Gibson Crestline look may be obtained from the GA-60 Hercules that we recently serviced.

Our Skylark, however, was a ‘white-panel’ Skylark, a newer version that had succeeded the Crestline models and was produced from 1965 to 1967. It featured front mounted bass and treble controls on a white steel chassis and a 10’’ speaker. The exterior is covered in course ‘crocodile skin’ tolex and, contrary to the GA-5T, the amp has no built-in tremolo and just three tubes: a 12AU7 in the pre-amp and two 6BQ5s (the US designation for EL84s) in push-pull configuration in the power amp. Should you wonder how it is possible to build a push-pull amp with just one pre-amp tube: Gibson did that by employing a little inter-stage transformer as a phase inverter! An elegant solution which also reduced the number of components. And the 1967 GA-5 had very few components anyway.

How does that bird sing?

Unfortunately, plugging in did not directly provide an answer to that, but resulted in a loud hum with only some faint guitar sounds in the background. Not what you’d expect from a Skylark! As changing the tubes made no difference, it was obvious that the amp needed to be serviced. Based on a thorough inspection, we estimated that it would be best to restore the amp to mint condition and make it safe to play in 21^st century standards by:

1. Replacing all electrolytic capacitors in the amp.

2. Replacing the power chord with a three-prong, grounded version; the insulation of the old chord had gone porous and the amp originally didn’t have a ground connection.

3. Removing the so-called ‘death capacitor’; for an explanation, check out this useful YouTube clip.

4. Mounting a new leather handle, as the old one had partly perished over the years and could break at any moment now, potentially dropping the amp to the floor.

5. Buying and installing a set of NOS (New Old Stock) tubes. We took the finished amp to Triple M Audio Shop in Rhenen. After discussing with the friendly folks over there and having heard several different options from their wide selection of NOS tubes in our amp, we went for a vintage RCA 12AX7 and two (matched) Russian military spec EL84s.

Taking it for a spin

Having done all this, we had ended up with a great sounding and very quiet amplifier (and a little pile of scrap parts, picture above). It was time to take our Skylark for a spin! One of its greatest assets appeared its very pure and direct sound, attributable to the small number of parts that the sound passes before reaching the speaker. Further, the Skylark has just enough power for playing live, in a jazz combo setting with a relatively quiet drummer. Turning up the volume to the required level for that however resulted in a mildly overdriven sound.

Further thoughts

If a cleaner sound with more headroom should be required, replacing the original speaker with a more efficient version should provide just enough headroom. A new speaker could also give the amp a bit more oomph in the bass range perhaps. However, before we had the opportunity to experiment with this, the amp was sold on to an enthusiastic new owner. Due its light weight, great sound and sufficient power, it is an ideal amp for bringing to jazz jam sessions, small gigs or even large gigs, when miked!