The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Hello, first post for me to show off my new guitar. A long time ago I owned two Aria Pro II basses that I sold away in youthful folly, something I have later come to regret. Some time ago I started feeling that one of the guitars I had didn't really suit me, and I set out to sell it and replace it with something else, and then it dawned on me that the replacement would have to be an Aria Pro II.
So I sold my previous guitar and then found and bought this RS Wildcat. It plays very well and sounds nice. Unfortunately I don't know exactly when it was made, rather than the first number of the serial hinting at the year this guitar has a weird serial starting with C00. I'd appreciate if someone knows if this serial format means something?
Some pictures:

No idea about the serial number, but the RS-Wildcat was made from the middle of the 80s onward.

The early RS-Wildcats have two humbucker pickups, so I'm guessing 86 or later.

Some of the Cardinals had a letter prefix as well.

Nice snag! I have an RS-Bobcat-IV and really like it.

Thank you! Yes, what information I could find also pointed to '86 or later. It might be that I'll never know a more accurate date. It's interesting how they used a number format for most of the serials, but then for some reason played fast and loose and departed from that for some guitars without discernible reason.

My understanding is that the letter prefix corresponded to the month.
So A=Jan, B=Feb, C=Mar, etc

No idea why that would be followed by 006 though

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

Ok, I hadn't heard about letters corresponding to months before but it does sound reasonable and looking into it now I found some information about that. But as you say, it's strange the following numbers are 006 since from what I understand the number following the letter should indicate year which doesn't lead to a dating that makes sense for this model.

Fujigen did (does?) use the letter for indicating the month... never heard that for Matsumoku.

My Westone Thunder I-A has the serial no. D810040 (April 1981).
However, all my other Westones have numbers only and were made after this date.

Westone Forum members have also reported serials staring with letters but IIRC they were older builds (pre -1981). Without checking further, my guess is that prior to '81 letters were used then dropped as brand promotion and production ramped up through the '80's.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

I've had two Cardinals that had a letter prefix but were also followed by the year.