Fernandes Guitar Serial Number Lookup
Click to expand.There are a number of Fernandes tele fans here. To tell you an more about your particular Fernandes, additional info from you will be needed.It can be difficult to find good information about Fernandes teles on the internet. You will probably find more accurate info on this forum that anywhere else, in fact. Even then, you may not be able to pinpoint specific details about the model you own, but you might get lucky.Key to figuring out this stuff is when the guitar was made.
Obviously it is a used guitar, since Fernandes doesn't make tele-style guitars anymore. Exactly when it was made may be hard to determine, but some of the clues are as follows:The headstock shapeThe headstock logoThe presence of or lack of any serial numbersThe body stylePhotos would help, but my feeling is that we can probably only get you close in terms of when it was made. The model type may be more easily established, dependent on the body type (unbound, bound, etc.), as it may be a TE-1, 2 or 3, for instance.Rather than reiterate a lot of stuff that has already been posted, use the advanced search function and do a search on 'fernandes', using the 'Search title only' choice in the drop-down box for starters. Here are a few representative threads:Members Mike Rice and sneakyjapan are good resources about Fernandes.
The older Fernandes guitars do have serial numbers on occasion, and can be found on the neck plates of the Stratocasters of the Revival series, but otherwise, Burny and Fernandes didn’t often use serial numbers. Dating a Burny or Fernandes can be loosely done by looking at the truss rod cover. The older FERNANDES guitars do have serial numbers on occasion, and can be found on the neck plates of the Revival series Stratocasters and Telecasters,. On some acoustic guitars, the serial number is on the inside of the sound hole. Serial numbers are often at least four digits long, and they sometimes include letters. Search the area around the serial number for a date stamp. Not all guitar brands use date stamps, but if you find one, you have your answer.
I have owned three myself. Here is sort of a general outline of Fernandes history. It takes a little bit of digging on the Internet to get Japanese guitar info.
Dating Fernandes Strat
But it is out there.' 'FERNANDES has two brand names on the market; FERNANDES and BURNY.The company was founded in 1969 as Saito Musical Instruments and registered as FERNANDES in 1972. Originally manufacturing flamenco guitars, the company expanded production over the years to include different acoustic models, electric guitars, bass guitars, amplifiers and accessories and is today one of the most famous Japanese guitar manufacturers.In the early 1970’s FERNANDES introduced copies of the Fender Stratocaster (FST series), Telecaster (FTE series) and bass guitars under the FERNANDES brand. These were a very good copy of Fender as compared to earlier copies by GRECO, (Matsumoku era) MORRIS and others. As with GRECO (see A History of GRECO Guitars) these early guitars were probably designed using Fender photos but all dimensions were metric instead of fractional inch.
Nonetheless, the Japanese younger generation was knocked out by the looks of these guitars.FERNANDES also introduced Gibson copies under the BURNY brand name. The early catalogs featured TV, SG and Firebird copies. These Gibson replicas were unique in that most Japanese manufacturers were using bolt-on neck bodies but BURNY was very good at set-neck construction. In addition, the SG copy included the vibro-tremolo unit. As an interesting side note, the BURNY name was supposed to be Bunny (as in rabbits) but was misspelled.
On learning of the error and the English meaning of burn, they decided to stick with the original BURNY brand name.In 1975, FERNANDES introduced copies of the Gibson Les Paul Standard and Custom. They utilized the solid mahogany back and 2 piece top of the Gibson and closely matched the set-neck construction of the Gibson originals.In 1980, under intense legal pressure from Gibson and Fender, FERNANDES introduced “The Revival” series.
Fernandes Guitars Identification
FERNANDES was forced to change the design of the logo mark and inlay on the head peg board to distance themselves from the Gibson and Fender designs. Many different logo and head designs mark this era.
Fernandes Logo
In addition, the Stratocaster copy was changed to the “RST” series and the Les Paul copy was changed to the “FLG” series. These are very nice quality guitars and are the basis of the “lawsuit”, Made in Japan (MIJ) and Japanese Vintage (JV) guitars that are our specialty.1980 through 1982 was the height of the legal war. In addition to FERNANDES, Greco, Yamaha, Tokai and Fresher were producing high quality “lawsuit” guitars that are much sought after by today’s collectors.FERNANDES is also well known in the United States for its Sustainer system which uses electromagnetism to vibrate a string for an indefinite period; as long as the user continues to fret the note. This was a huge leap forward in electric guitar technology and the custom shop at FERNANDES and dealers worldwide installed Sustainers on many manufacturers’ guitars.'