Most will be 5 to 6 digits in length, but the earliest examples feature 4 digit serial numbers. There should be a space after the 1st digit with the 4 and 5 digit serial numbers, and no space with the 6 digit numbers. The 1st digit indicates the year of manufacture for the 4 & 5 digit serial numbers, these were used from 1989-1999.

Charlie, if this has been posted before please delete it or move it. There are 4 distinct 'eras' of Epiphone: A) House of Stathopoulo (1873 - 1957); B) Gibson Kalamazoo (1957 - 1970); C) Japanese (1970 - 1983); D) Korean (1983 - Present); The original Epiphone factory was in New York, when the company was owned and operated by the Stathopoulo family. That was the era of the legendary archtops like the Regent, Broadway, Deluxe, etc. In 1957, Epiphone was tenuously clinging to existence; the company had been bought out by the C.G.

Conn company (best known for band and orchestral instruments), and was all but out of business. Gibson President Ted McCarty (who recently passed away; R.I.P., Ted) negotiated a deal to buy out Epiphone's upright bass business, but when the equipment was moved to Gibson's Kalamazoo factory, McCarty found out that *all* of Epiphone's equipment, tooling, and parts inventory had been included. That led to Gibson building Epiphones in the Gibson factory; the first few years (1958-61), Gibson used up all the old parts, and in the early 60's, used Gibson parts.

This worked well for both Gibson and Epiphone, because it allowed music dealers who couldn't get an official Gibson franchise (which were *very* strictly enforced in those days) to get an Epiphone (which had become a quasi-Gibson) franchise instead. In 1969, Norlin Industries bought the Chicago Musical Instrument company (which owned Gibson at the time), which heralded the 'Dreaded Norlin Era' at Gibson, in which the quality declined greatly.

Epiphone production was contracted to companies in Japan in order to cut costs. The Japanese Epis are good guitars, but they suffered both the 'Made in Japan' and 'Norlin' stigmas; they've always been under-rated as a result. In 1983, around the time that Gibson was bought by a group headed by Henry Juszkiewicz (now President of Gibson USA), Epiphone production was contracted to Korean companies, most notably Samick (of which Epiphone/Gibson owns a significant percentage).

With some exceptions, Epiphones are made in Korea to this day. Download free donella meadows thinking in systems pdf writer pdf. Most Epiphones can be dated fairly accurately by their serial numbers. The exception to this is the Japanese-era guitars; the serial numbering doesn't seem to have followed any sequential pattern from year to year, which makes it *very* difficult to date them accurately. Original Epiphones had a number of different serial numbering schemes, depending on the year. Gibson-built Epiphones followed the Gibson serial numbering scheme.

Korean-made Epiphones have a letter (manufacturer's ID code) and a 7 or 8-digit serial number as follows: First digit (7) or first 2 digits (8): Year of manufacture. Next 2 digits: Month of manufacture. Last 4 digits: Production sequence number. Epiphone hasn't released particulars of the letter ID codes at this point. A reference to Epiphone serial numbers is available at in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format.

Epiphone is one of the widely known guitar manufacturers. Originally an independent brand, Epiphone was bought by Gibson Guitar in 1957. As opposed to a brand such as Fender, whose guitars are either made in America or Mexico, Epiphone's guitars can come from a number of different factories in a variety of countries.

For this reason, it is not as easy to know where each guitar comes from or when it was made. Epiphone stamps each guitar with a serial number, however, which when deciphered can tell a guitarist all he needs to know about the guitar.