ST Serial Number Table

[Sigmania]

I am going to start a rough serial number stable based on the examples we have collected so far and amend it over time.

Obviously the boundaries are fuzzy and not as rigid as a table would imply. There will always be outliers and anomalies for various reasons, but it would be better than what is out there right now and may be something we can inject into the Registry if we ever get the chance to give it an overhaul.

 

[Sigmania]

Very rough and certainly contains errors. Bound to be updated many more times....

1977 7 digit: 7xxxxxx
1978 7 digit: 8xxxxxx
1979 7 digit: 9xxxxxx
1980 7 digit: 0xxxxxx
1981 7 digit: 101xxxx-102xxxx
1982 R: L00000-L06000 4 digit: 0xxx-3xxx, 5 digit:100xx-13xxx, 6 digit: 101xxx-106xxx
1983 R: L07000-L16000 4 digit: xxxx-xxxx, 5 digit:13xxx-2xxxx, 6 digit: 106xxx-107xxx
1984 R: L16000-L2xxxx 4 digit: 5 digit: 6 digit: 11xxxx-
1985 R: L2xxxx-L2xxxx 4 digit: 5 digit: 6 digit:
1986 R: L2xxxx-L31xxx, 6 digit: 203xxx-21xxxx
1987 6 digit: 21xxxx-22xxxx
1988 6 digit: 22xxxx-
1989 5 digit: 1xxxx
1990 5 digit: 1xxxx
1991 6 digit: 01xxxx-
1992 6 digit: 01xxxx-

 

[Sigmania]

Already you can see that they possibly made somewhere around 6,000 rosewood board ST guitars in 1982 and approaching 10,000 in 1983. Assuming all the numbers were used. That is a lot of guitars.

Probably need to pick this apart later and see if this is anywhere close to accurate.

 

[ATO]

The UK was one of the main markets and I just don't think there was anywhere near those figures coming in in the early 80s. I've been around pro/semi pro guitarists all over the country for 30 years and you just don't see many tokais about. It's a small place - Where are they all?

How many guitars fit in a 40ft container? 300-400 rough guess tops, probably less. - based on that a container shipment once a month is roughly 5k mixed guitars a year. The STs were retailing at £200 GBP. That would be £1 million GBP retail per year minimum in the early 80s that was mega bucks.

I think it was less than that - I don't think all the serials were used

 

[Homer J. Simpson]

While it might be safe to assume that they made more neck plates than guitars - I think they first and foremost (and in the first 2-3 years probably pretty exclusively) served the domestic market, then the bigger Asian/Pacific region.

Unfortunately the sales distribution is probably the most impossible thing to figure out and extreme guesswork and speculation but Japan (more than twice as much population as the UK in e.g. 1982) was - and still is - obviously a huge market so it may not be so far off to say that maybe half of the guitars were sold in Japan.

So the rest of the world had to share the other half. Initially without the US market, but still not that many guitars if you consider that the UK may have been the biggest single market in the EU but likely not bigger than the whole rest of the EU. No idea how big the Asian/Pacific market was but I think they too bought a good portion of the remaining 10,000? guitars per year.

I get what you're saying, nobody had a Tokai in 1982 or '83 but that doesn't seem so surprising when at best a few 100 people each month nationwide were lucky enough to live near a shop that had a few of them. Getting to see one of those in the wild, close enough to realize that it's not a Fender or Gibson wasn't so easy. Well, probably easier in Block logo land.

 

[Sigmania]

I also need to keep in mind that there are some weird derial numbers by the mid 80s involving the TST-56/62 and the AST-56/62 that may nit conform.

TST-56 Gallery

TST-62 Gallery

AST-56 Gallery

AST-62 Gallery

As well as some six digit numbers used beginning in 1982

Six Digit Serial Numbers Starting with 10xxxx

Six Digit Serial Numbers Starting With 11xxxx