Victor Squier started making his own hand-wound violin strings, and the business grew so quickly that he and his employees improvised a dramatic production increase by converting a treadle sewing machine into a string winder capable of producing 1, uniformly high-quality strings per day. Squier violin strings , banjo strings and guitar strings became well known nationwide and were especially popular among students because of their reasonable price.
In the s, Squier began making strings for the era's new electric instruments; the company also sold pianos , radios and phonograph records until divesting itself of all string-related products in Fender Electric Instruments entered the picture in the s, when the V.
Squier Company began supplying Southern California inventor and businessman Leo Fender with strings for his unusual new electric guitars. Squier Company became an official original equipment manufacturer for Fender in Fender acquired the V. By the mids, the Squier name was retired as the strings had taken the Fender name. Before the Fender Squier line of guitars was introduced in , Fender was making lower priced guitars such as the Fender Lead series at its Fullerton, California plant.
Until the introduction of the Fender Squier series, Fender had never produced lower priced guitars based on its main Stratocaster and Telecaster models and had always used different model designs for its lower priced guitars. In the late s and early s Fender was facing competition from lower priced Japanese made guitars. The higher priced Fender guitars were made in the United States and could not compete with the lower prices of Japanese made Fender copies.
In the early s, Japanese labor and production costs were much lower than in America and to compete with the Japanese made guitars, Fender moved the lower priced Fender guitar production from America to Japan. Fender began negotiations with several Japanese musical instrument distributors and reached an agreement with Yamano Gakki and Kanda Shokai to establish Fender Japan.
Yamano Gakki was known for once being part of Epiphone Japan. Kanda Shokai owned the Greco brand name and one of the conditions of the Fender Japan agreement was that Kanda Shokai cease production of its own Greco Fender copies. This arrangement benefited Fender because it removed the Greco Fender copies from the Japanese market, which were selling in Japan at much lower prices than the American made Fenders and it also benefited Kanda Shokai because Kanda Shokai could then distribute Japanese made Fender branded guitars in Japan.
Further negotiations between Fender and Japanese guitar factories took place. Tokai was seriously considered to start building the first Japanese made Fenders, but after a breakdown in negotiations, FujiGen Gakki was chosen instead.
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Over time, the Squier series slowly evolved to include original model designs and production has moved from Japan to various other Asian countries such as Korea, China and Indonesia. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the surname, see Squier surname. This article relies too much on references to primary sources. Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources.
- Serial Number dating?.
- Korean Fender Serial Numbers.
- tell me what a strat serial number starting with CN means.
Again, a neck was stamped with either the new or the old date stamp, but not both. Fender dropped the old style date stamp after March and continued with the new 8-digit code. April to After March , Fender dropped the old style date stamp and continued to use the new style, 8-digit code. All non-vintage reissue instruments have the serial number printed on the decal on the face of the peghead. The approximate production year can be determined from this more about serial numbers will follow.
Squier serial number & product dating? | Harmony Central
Sometimes a date is stamped or hand-written on the butt of the neck. Vintage reissue instruments have the date on the butt end of the neck like the originals. The neck stamps on Fenders from to can be most logically translated by reading from right to left. Starting with the letter B , this is the same neck width code Fender has been using since The following three digits, here , could be a batch or lot number, or i could be the count for how many of this one instrument that was made within the month.
Since Fender could probably produce more than of any one type instrument in a month, it is more likely a batch or lot number. Finally, the first one or two digits of the code tells you which model you are holding; 22 being a Stratocaster. There are some exceptions as you can see in this information provided by Mike Gagliano. A likely explanation is the use of leftover necks, which Fender is known to have done at several occasions. Other exceptions exist as well. For example, a Strat with the neck code B. The first 6 digits are in pairs and the last two digits are standalone, giving us 49 00 21 5 The chart below shows the serial numbers used by Fender from to You may notice the significant overlap in numbers and years.
The only way to try to narrow the date range of your instrument is to remove the neck and check the butt end of the neck heel for a production date as mentioned above. Some users may find the prospect of disassembling their Fender unsettling; if so, please refer to an experienced professional guitar tech for help. Fender was sold to CBS in January The chart below shows Fender serial numbers from to Again, notice the overlap in numbers and years. In things were made a little easier.
In , Fender introduced the U. Vintage Series, check neck date for specific year. The numbers and decals were made years in advance, and some N9 decals denoting were, in a blunder, affixed to some instruments in Z0 is ; Z1 is , etc. As usual, there is some overlap from year to year. Only the seven-digit suffixes were actually entered into the database.
These serial numbers did not identify the country of origin in the body of the number. The first two digits of the number identify the year of manufacture, 10 for , 11 for , etc. The next six digits are the unit identifier. This new system is now standard on the majority of U. These apply to instruments that exist outside the more well known Fender serial number schemes. Some may have stayed in the U. For dating on non-U. For serial number look-ups on Fender and other brands go to: Your email address will not be published.
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Squier serial number & product dating?
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