Thankfully Takamine serial numbers are a little more straight forward than some other guitar companies.

Find the current Blue Book value and worth of your new and used guitars, both acoustic, electric and amplifier. The number one source of guitar and amplifier pricing and information so you can find the price and value of your used guitars and amplifier. Use this site for a pricing guide and source of information on all guitars. 'Carvin does not keep an accurate database of serial numbers, and cannot provide any information based solely on a serial number. Because many of the guitars they produce are custom orders, the serial numbers flow as the orders are received, therefore, sequential serial numbers could represent any model guitar or bass.'

This article will look at what your Takamine serial number can tell you about your guitar and how to decode that number.

What They Can Tell You About Your Guitar

The main things that Takamine’s serial number tells you is the date your guitar was built – more specifically the month and the year – not the exact day.

It also tells you which number guitar produced your guitar was, during the particular month – i.e. the 1st guitar that month, the 22^nd, the 1,000^th etc.

This might give you some clue as to the day in the month it was made but not an accurate one – for example, if your guitar was the 5^th built that month, then it was likely to be on one of the first days of the month. But for most, the exact day of build and the sequential number it was built in that month, isn’t that important anyway.

So, the main thing this serial number will tell you is finding out the month and year of build.

Where Can I Find the Serial Number?

Takamine serial numbers are typically found on the neck block (where the neck joins the body) on the inside of the body of the guitar.

Decoding Takamine Serial Numbers

Now we come the important part – decoding the serial number. Thankfully this is fairly straight forward when it comes to Takamine, though there are, as usual, a few extras.

There are a couple of different serial number systems depending on which model and depending on where they were made and distributed.

Pro Series Models

Takamine’s Pro Series (which is pretty much all of their series except for the G series) models follow an 8 digit serial number system.

The first 2 numbers represent the year of production.

The next 2 numbers represent the month of production.

The last 4 numbers represent the sequential order of that guitar for the month.

O.k. so pretty straight forward right. But let’s take a look at an example to make it really clear.

• Example serial number: 08040781

From our example serial number we can see that this guitar would have been built in 2008 (08), in April (04) and it was the 781^st (0781) guitar built that month.

Said another way, this was the 781^st Pro Series guitar that Takamine built in April of 2008.

However, this system is only relevant for up to the end of 2012 – after that they adopted a new system (see overseas models below).

G Series Models

O.k. did I say that Takamine’s serial number systems were straight forward – o.k. I might have lied, just a little.

The G series is the exception. There is no discernable system for G Series models. No decoding going on here, unfortunately.

Models Distributed in Japan

Note that Takamine is a Japanese guitar manufacturer (more on Takamine’s History).

Any models that were distributed in Japan, as opposed to internationally, used a slightly different serial number system. It’s still an 8 digit system and the 1^st two digits still represent the year, the second two digits still represent the month, and the last 4 digits still represent the sequential order that the guitar was built in that month.

The difference is the first two digits for the year.

These digits represent the number of years since Takamine’s began in 1962.

For example, if the first two digits were “40” then that would represent 2002 (1962 + 40 years).

So, using an example: 41100035

This was the 35^th (0035) guitar manufactured in October (10) of 2003 (41 – which is 1962+41)

Japanese Made Models Distributed Overseas

Towards the end of 2012 models distributed overseas started to use the same serial number system as those that are distributed in Japan.

So, if your Takamine was built after 2012 you might see something like this: 51050213

This would represent the 213^th (0213) guitar built in May (05) 2013 (1962+51 = 2013).

Thanks for Reading

Apart from the G Series models, Takamine’s serial number systems are fairly straightforward and easy to understand.

If you have a G Series guitar, you might want to contact Takamine to see what they can tell you about the guitar. Otherwise, you should be able to decipher the year, month and the sequence in that month that your guitar was built.

Any questions or comments please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Image Credits

By Alan Levine (Flickr: EST 1962) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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