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| Even if this headstock didn’t say “Made in Japan,” the “J” that begins the serial number indicates that it was. |
The serial number on your modern Gretsch guitar or bass contains specific information about where and when it was made. This allows you to accurately date a modern Gretsch guitar by its serial number.
By modern, by the way, we mean since 2003, which is when Gretsch serial numbering took its current form. Various other serial numbering systems existed before then that stretch far back into Gretsch history—all the way back to the very earliest Gretsch guitars of the 1930s. We’ll cover those older serial numbering systems in another installment.
As for the present, the modern system is quite simple. Gretsch serial numbers typically appear on the back of the headstock and begin with a two-letter prefix code indicating the country of origin and specific manufacturing facility, followed by numbers indicating year and month of manufacture and sequential order of manufacture.
“JT” is most common among the several two-letter country/factory prefixes, signifying Japan (J) and its Terada (T) factory. Others are “CS” (U.S. Custom Shop), “CY” (China, Yako facility), “JD” (Japan, Dyna Gakki facility), “JF” (Japan, Fuji-Gen Gakki facility), “KP” (Korea, Peerless facility) and “KS” (Korea, Samick/SPG facility).
After the two-letter prefix, two digits designate the year of manufacture; the next two designate the month of manufacture, and the remaining four digits designate the instrument’s sequential number among all models built that year. Of those last four sequential-order digits, 0001 through 0100 designate prototype and one-off models, sample instruments and other special instruments; 0101 through 9999 designate all regular production models.
For example then, a modern Gretsch serial number such as “JT07115922” would indicate that the instrument was built in Japan (J) at the Terada factory (T); that it was built in 2007 (07) in November (11); and that it was the 5,922nd production-model instrument made that year. Similarly, “JT12030040” would indicate a non-regular-production instrument built in March 2012 at the Terada factory in Japan, and that it was the 40th among the special-run instruments made that year.