Ok, I'll go first.

[Phil Maneri]

Originally Posted by David Powell

This is interesting information Phil. I have a Fender P, numbered 406527. Like Michael Holden's P, the tugbar is on the G side. I bought this bass used from a pawn shop in Albany, Ga in spring of 1975. When I got curious as to the exact age of my bass, I enquired to the then Fender, Rogers, Rhodes (CBS musical instruments) company. That was in 1976. They sent me a nice letter on company stationery that I still have. Apparently if you asked them at that time, the records were pretty precise. Quoting the May 28, 1976 reply from Vince Basse, Service Manager: "Our records show that your bass was built August 2, 1973 and was originally sold to Bibb Music in Macon, Georgia. We have no idea who purchased the instrument from this store." I guess the records got fuzzier with time.

I also have a nice old '69 Gibson. The best they can tell me now is 1967-69, but back in 1977, Norlin identified it as a 1969. My guess is that the earlier you asked about the manufacture date, the better the information will be. Anyway Michael's came somewhat after mine, but probably not that long, assuming the numbers are sequential. Also there is no neck stamp of any kind on my bass that I can find.

Several things there. Fender's shipping manifests are unavailable. I don't know what happened to them. No one I know of has that information. Its doesn't surprise me that the shipping manifests were still accessible within 3 years of manufacture in the 70's.

In interviews with Fender employees (I'll need to dig up the Asian fellow's name who wrote the strat book that told me this) they said the serial numbers were not sequential. They produced the stamped neck plates in big batches and dumped them in a barrel at the end of the assembly station. The worker bolting the neck on just grabbed one and stuck in on there. Didn't matter if it was a strat or pbass. When they got more they just dumped them on top of what was already in there. In addition Necks and Bodies and pickups were all made in batches. They just grabbed parts and put them together. Many months could have separated the building of each part so you can get some serial numbers, pot numbers, pickup markings, and neck dates a good distance apart.

Gibson is a whole nuther bag of worms. Their serialization was in a great deal of flux in the '60s so you have to use additional clues in dating those as well. Later in the '70's Gibson got that together and were much more accurate.

Martin Guitars kept great records and as such the date of manufacture is easiest to hone in on.

[David Powell]

I'm guessing with all the changes in ownership of the company from Fender to CBS and beyond to whatever the current status is, keeping old records was probably not the first priority. The same probably goes for Gibson and the Norlin period. I guess the date mentioned is when they finally put all the pieces together maybe? It sounds like the typical crank-em-out style factory process. So what about the neck stamp thing? I'm missing that on my old bass or I don't know where to look. All it has on the head stock are the name decals and some patent decals. I've had this one long enough to know that only a few parts are not original, mainly the POS bridge was replaced with a 25th anniversary type brass one, the knobs were changed to match, and the nut (when it broke) was replaced with a brass one. And I put strap-lock lugs on it a long time ago. And I have changed the strings but not recently!

[Phil Maneri]

Originally Posted by David Powell

I'm guessing with all the changes in ownership of the company from Fender to CBS and beyond to whatever the current status is, keeping old records was probably not the first priority. The same probably goes for Gibson and the Norlin period. I guess the date mentioned is when they finally put all the pieces together maybe? It sounds like the typical crank-em-out style factory process. So what about the neck stamp thing? I'm missing that on my old bass or I don't know where to look. All it has on the head stock are the name decals and some patent decals. I've had this one long enough to know that only a few parts are not original, mainly the POS bridge was replaced with a 25th anniversary type brass one, the knobs were changed to match, and the nut (when it broke) was replaced with a brass one. And I put strap-lock lugs on it a long time ago. And I have changed the strings but not recently!

Neck stamps were gone by late '72. Serial numbers moved to peghead faces sometime in '76. The dead zone in between has lots of hotly debated dating issues.