The Electra Forums

Hi,
I'm new here and I might have missed it but I looked and didn't see a thread on how to read the serial #'s. Any help is much appreciated

Thanks,

Serial numbers only make sense in certain periods- mainly from about 1980 onward. At this point all Electra guitars were made by Matsumoku, and they followed a numbering system in which the first digit was the last digit of the year, and the second and third were month. Then followed three or more digits which appear to be sequential production of that month.

The other period in which serial numbers can date an Electra guitar is in 1976 and 1977 with guitars distributed by Hoshino. IN this case there is a leading letter for month and then the next two digits are year, and the rest are apparently sequential that year. Hoshino also distributed Ibanez, so this is also called 'Ibanez-style' numbering.

Otherwise, serial numbers are unknown as far as what models, what years, production figures, etc.

Thanks a bunch X189, I needed this info too. This means my X-140 was made in November of 1980 (which is weird, I thought they went on in '81).
Either way, this means it's going on 28 years old next month!
Mine's also #363. not to bad I suppose.

Edit: Exact # is 011363

_________________
Addicted to Matsumoku.

Wow! That's the first month of production from what I can see. And they're all very good- it's like it was hte first batch of them, and the attention to detail, and the choice and placement of grain is jsut great.

Yours is the earliest sunburst I've seen. I've seen earlier natural grain guitars though.

Definitely can't complain about that.
You know, the grain on mine looks dreat on front, but the back is so contrasted, gives for a cool effect.
So I'm guessing they made these in late '80 and put then it became an '81 model, right?

_________________
Addicted to Matsumoku.