Are Fender serial numbers random?

[Fretting out]

Do they just pull them out of a bin randomly like they did in the 50’s?

I recently got a A.V 59 maple board strat and looked up the serial number which states it was made in aug 2012, for kicks I looked up the following serial number and it was made/assembled in feb 2013

And I thought “holy crap that’s a big gap” these things must be random

I also looked up the two preceding numbers one was the same month but the other one was two months after mine!

They were also all different models which was kind of interesting which I guess they would be if they are that far apart

Does anyone know the story with serial numbers? At least for the A.V. Series?

 

[Blrfl]

It's going to be pretty much random but roughly-assignable to a period of time.

Some of it has to do with parts having stamped serial numbers being bought and bulk and pulled out of the crate in small batches during assembly. The same would go for decals.

Fender don't necessarily ship what it manufactures immediately; there's a good possibility that others in the same batch as yours sat in storage until a dealer placed orders for similar models.

 

[Boreas]

I don't know about Fender Corona, but MII Squiers have internal tracking tags with serial numbers with production info attached to both the neck and the body - I assume early in the manufacturing process. I have no reason to believe the numbers are random. They are likely produced in sequence.

 

[John C]

AVs and other Fenders where the serial number is stamped on the neck plate are fairly random - the plates are in a bin and the assemblers just grab a stack of them for their workbench, and probably once they are done with the assembly those serialized neck plates go back into the bin until the next time that assembler works on one of those models. So they get out of order, just like the plates did back in Leo's day. But because they now code the year into the AV/AO neck plates that randomness is a bit more limited than in the past.

I suppose there is also some element of randomness with the serial number decals - but maybe not to the same extent as with the serial number neck plates.

 

[Killing Floor]

Don’t know about today but both my vintage Fenders seem to be randomly assigned. And I have a 73 P bass that shows as 3 instruments on the Fender lookup, 2 guitars and a bass. And they are years apart. I always assumed everyone was on the catnip.

I know Leo’s next venture at MM, the serial number was stamped on the bridge for a time and whatever bridge they grabbed was the serial number of the instrument.

 

[VillainSean]

The vintage reissue models follow a different scheme with regards to serial numbers, usually starting with a V-XXXXXX.