An exhaustive amount of research Mozart and I wonder if you or any of the other officiandos to this thread might be able to help me decipher the date of my Vantage acoustic VA-40C? The main serial number I've listed looks to me like it could be November 1979 but that conflicts a bit with some of your research or hypothesis I think, unless I've misunderstood, and in particular the vertical writing on the headstock. Here's a post I submitted recently and wonder if anyone on the thread has a view?
Previous Post: Fabulous resource, I knew nothing about Vantage and Matsumoku four weeks ago until I was offered to try a VA-40C six string acoustic cutaway in a private sale.
It's just such a pleasure to play, and it's loud and clear without being brash, it's capable of lovely nuance and subtlety. I love it.
I've read a good many of the threads and photos on this Vantage board and everything looks right when compared alongside the VA-40N and the VA-40CE which appear here, even to the point of the little black and gold sticky label on the back of the headstock which says "Made in Japan".
My problem is I still can't work out how to decipher the six digit serial number in order to find out the year. This isn't helped by the fact a couple of the digits are not quite as clear as they might be. I believe the correct serial number, which is visible inside the sound hole at the bottom of the neck, by the truss rod adjuster socket is: 791095 and I thought this might be November 1979 but I think that conflicts with the theory that the vertical headstock logo wasn't introduced until [1982], unless this one was a prototype.
But, it might be 791096, 731095 or 731096 although I'm fairly confident it's 791095. I'm in the UK and the person selling bought it in the late 1980s in New York and brought it back to England.
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