Yamaha Serial Number Guitar

[Raelene]

Thanksa lot for that valuable info CTGull .

My wife has an FG75 that was given to her as a gift when she graduated high school. It has the Yamaha on the peghead under the tuning forks and a tan label with "Republic Of China". The serial number is 0515172. I'm assuming that puts it at 1974.

It is now the house "Nashville - High strung" guitar.

Thanks a lot for that valuable info CTGull .

My wife has an FG75 that was given to her as a gift when she went away to university. It has the Yamaha on the peghead under the tuning forks and a tan label with "Republic Of China". The serial number is 0515172. I'm assuming that puts it at 1974.

It is now the house "Nashville - High strung" guitar.

(Ver. 2.0)

Yamaha serial numbers are recycled every ten years, 29 formats are supported here based on research available on the yamaha website. There is some overlap between formats and in those cases multiple results will be generated. If you encounter any inaccuracies please email the web master

you mean one like this? I have 3, paid $120.oo for one and $1.oo for another...not a typo...I paid $1.00 and was the only bidder because the seller said the binding was broken, sounded like a piece was missing but I bid anyways and it turned out the binding had come unglued at the waist so I glued it back and that was that. The third cost me $20.oo , so thats what they`re going for ballpark in Japan these days, and it`s shocking how little people know of them considering how many are after the red label FGs, considering these first run Yamaha classicals were all solid wood...the No. 150 is listed as Palisander, my books mention the solid maple No. 100s as being made by Yamahas best luthiers at the time and there was also a No. 120 made of solid mahogany...so the No. 150 was top of the line. They sold for 2 months of the average workers salary at the time, not cheap by any means . Recent data dug up by Japanese who collect these and the Dynamics says that the Dynamics were not actaully built by Yamaha, their factory came on line in `66 so makes sense, and these first run classicals came before that and Suzuki has been mentioned as having a hang in the Dynamics and perhaps the classicals made before `66...and Suzuki had been long established by the time the No. 150 was made, I have a 1948 Suzuki thats still going strong and I see other brands that have the Suzuki name on the label...saw a Fernendes acoustic with Suzuki on the label last night on line...or that resemble Suzukis in some ways. The No. 150 has the wider, flatter neck found on classicals today as opposed to the fatter necks on the very first Yamaha classical types...the No. 45 and No. 85...and to my ears those first classicals don`t have as deep a voice as the Dynamics but are still real nice guitar, or I`d have stopped at one. More folks are after them now but they ain`t paying a lot for em in Japan. Not sure of your story...buying or selling...nor ths sums of money involved, just letting you know what I know and my experince in buying the No. 150.??

Thanks. My two sons have a Martin D35, several different Epiphone Masterbilts, a pre-war series Brazilian Blueridge and some miscellaneous other steel string guitars but their best sounding guitar is a Yamaha LA8. With that in mind, I purchased a Yamaha No. 150 looking for a holy grail classical under $500. It arrives shortly. Probably paid too much but even cheap Yamahas rarely dissappoint compared to others of some price.

my wife is dealing with the loss of an aunt, and uncle... on the same day so I`ll ask her in a while, she`s got other things on her mine now so sorry but you`ll have to wait a little. We`re both spending a lot of time at the funeral home and ceremonies that go along with things like this, I have to leave in a short time for another buddist ceremony today. My job is to take care of my brother in laws 3 year old while the family is occupied with more serious matters.

you had a good close look? `cause you answered your own question but... they not listed as being laminated, I can see the ridges of the pine going under the beveled top, the lines match up all the way through, I looked with my watchmakers loupe. The page of the old catalog I linked is dated 1966, interestingly the same year Yamaha`s factory came on line which produced the first laminated FGs though Yamaha already done some laminating with the S series Dynamics though it`s unclear if they made those themselves or had made for them by another factory. I`m just home for lunch now so I`ll try to have another look at the one I have sitting on the sofa but I`ve never read of those being laminated...in fact the No. 100s are listed as being all solid in the Japan Vintage books, my 120 is also all solid wood.

...can be seen on the inside of the guitar just at the base of the neck block, if it were plywood I belive we wouldn`t see them on the inside...not to mention the grain matches on the back and sides...

couple of pics of the top, pardon my finger tip but it was a bit of a struggle with just two hands...a third would have been great, thank you evolution!...the thick brown part is the end of the fingerboard, below that is the top of the guitar...I had to balance the flashlight, the watchmakers loupe and the camera so the quality may not be up to National Geographic standards but hey, it was the best I could do with what I had...

"Yamahas music shines, the technique of building our guitars is to make players better...listen!...Good balance, harmony and the best materials were used, and based on many years of piano building, in the making of this new line-up. One by one each guitar has it`s own character."

can you see the gold lines on the inside of yours like in the pic I posted above?...I`d not noticed them before. So...theres quite a difference in serials between ours, wonder if that`s why, plus...it makes me think Yamaha actually exported some of those early classicals, entirely possible since they`d exported other Dynamics before that, and according to what I`ve read they reached 6 digits in 1960 and the JIS mark appeared in `63 on the Dynamics. The link to the catalog dates the No. 150s to 1966, but if you get into yamahas you`ll soon learn it`s very difficult getting precise data on the early stuff.

You haven`t mentioned how you like the guitar...gonna keep it or resell? Any pics of the top available...you`ve got some extra hands to help you get some. If you gat pics I couyld send them to the people who wrote the books on early Yamahas and let them know `cause as far as I can tell they believe those are all solid wood, I bet they`d be interested to see pics of a lmainated 150.

Information on these guitars is not easy to find. They were made solely for the Japanese domestic market and Yamaha themselves did not export any of them. Therefore they only appear in the Japanese catalogues and not any of the English language ones. Some obviously made their way to the west including an SL400s which I own. In rewriting these pages I have had a lot of information from a SL LP collector called Dan. I am indebted to him for some great information

As with many things Yamaha the truth is often different to the catalogues and archives but they are the best source we have along with some information from owners. The timeline for these models is:

1976 The first SL series of 9 models launched the 380, 430, 500, 550, 650, 700, 800,1000 and 1200

1979 Further 6 SL Models added the 400s, 500s, 600s, 700s, 700c, 800s

1980 Original 9 models discontinued

1982 Old models all discontinued and replaced by 2 new models the 450s and 550s

1984 All SLs discontinued and replaced by the 5 LP Models the 400, 500, 600, 800 custom and 1000 at sometime there was also an LP1000 custom produced in quite limited numbers, see later comments.

According to the Archives all production ceased in 1985, they do appear in the 1985 catalogue

Dan has an LP 400 with a serial number of 5Y22019 which would indicate to me an earliest date of November 1986. This guitar has sealed Yamaha Chrome tuners instead of the plastic covered Kluson type. I have now seen more LP400s with these sealed tuners they all have E4 series serial numbers 5K19057 5X21010 and 5Z24002 the earliest these could be are April 1986, October 1986 and December 1986 respectively. I am now fairly certain that the archives are wrong and production of at least the LP400 continued until at least late 1986 and that the specs changed at least to the extent of there being these tuners. However I have yet to find any other LP models with this range of serial numbers so it may be just the LP400 that continued. See pictures at the bottom of the page. As often with Yamaha the number in the designation relates to the launch price in 100s of Yen. So a model designated as 800 would be released at 80,000 yen. This carries through to many other Yamaha ranges but not to all

There is a theory that these and Superaxes follow the published series for SGs and in most cases this appears to be true but some which are in the right format give you the wrong year and several have serial numbers that fit into no published format at all. The most reliable way of dating Yamahas is by the numbers on the back of the pickups however a lot of this range don't have the relevant numbers on the pickups. Here is a spreadsheet with a few example serial numbers

Having added a few more serial numbers to the spreadsheet it looks like:

The first series 1976 to 1979 follow the SG numbering system

The second series 1979 to 1981 in the majority of cases don't follow the SGs

The third series 1982 to 1983 the majority look like they do follow the SGs

The Lord Players follow the SGs except that I have seen several LP400s with a 6 digit number beginning with 3 perhaps as the LP400 seems to have been produced for longer than the other LPs these are some of the later ones and have been given some domestic only serial numbers.

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