Gibson Les Paul Serial Numbers

[EL 34]

i went to MLP and couldn't get a straight answer or link. how do i go about finding the age of my 1957 reissue custom shop les paul? the first 3 digits are 711.

the year on the hand written sticker on the case (from the guitar shop?) contradicts the year shown on the receipt.

 

[Easton55]

http://www.themusiczoo.com/blog/2011/gibson-and-epiphone-guitars-serial-number-guide/
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/article/1500-how-to-date-your-gibson-guitar.html
A couple that might help. I'm trying to find one I usually use, but I lost the bookmark, and can't remember what it was called. Will keep digging.

 

[Maklaca]

If you send the serial number to service@gibson.com they can look it up for you and answer any questions about it.

(Had to edit the e-mail address)

 

[Vinsanitizer]

i went to MLP and couldn't get a straight answer or link. how do i go about finding the age of my 1957 reissue custom shop les paul? the first 3 digits are 711. The year on the hand written sticker on the case (from the guitar shop?) contradicts the year shown on the receipt.

Forget the sticker on the case. In a 6-digit serial number like 71XXXX, the first two digits represent the model year and manufacturing year. The rest, I believe, is the production number.

My 2013 R9's numbering is: 93XXXX, where '9'=1959 and '3'=2013.
My 2011 R8's numbering is: 81XXXX, where '8'=1958 and '1'=2011.

Therefore, assuming you have the same 6-digit number:
Your R7's numbering is: 71XXXX, where '7'=1957 and '1'=2011.

As far as I know, there's no way to gather an exact birth date from the production number. The production number is just a sequential number. It does not even indicate the number of 1957 reissues made up to your serial number, because the production number includes other Custom Shop models as well.

Hope that clears it up for ya.

 

[custom53]

Try this if you haven't yet.. But as stated above you might have better luck calling Gibson..

http://www.guitardaterproject.org/gibson.aspx

 

[Vinsanitizer]

Try this if you haven't yet.. But as stated above you might have better luck calling Gibson..

http://www.guitardaterproject.org/gibson.aspx

That site doesn't work for Custom Shop reissues.