My apologies for the thread drift, but Wim has raised an interesting question.
The SNs with two letters ( F=1966 to Z=1986) are the best for figuring out what percentage we have collected so far in a given year in the register.
Consecutive serial numbers are useful.
Electro Strings would start with Year whatever, and then month A=January and then the numbers 0001, and adding consecutively until what ever number they reached in December. This gives us the total number of instruments produced in a given year, and then we can get a rough idea of the percentage we have added so far to the database.
Again it is not 100%, as a number of instruments are actually in the database twice, or even three times, with partial or inaccurately collected SNs. Sometimes all we have to go on when seeking a SN for a specific instrument is a really grainy or blurry image of the jackplate or bridge.
Again we have no way of knowing if the highest number we have collected each December was the total - or even close to it. But it does give us some data to consider at least. A ball park at least I would guess.
This does not include Amplifiers which had a separate month code and numbering system. Also we have seen some SN's which are out of number sequence, the jack plates appear genuine, but who knows why the plates were stamped as they were? Never say anything definitive - I have earned over the years here on this forum - just look at examples of what has been collected.
But it does give us some data to consider. I am not a statistician in anyway, but I think I have crunched the data correctly on my spreadsheet.
And I think it better methodology then Richard Smith going through invoices in some of the filing cabinets at RIC - although I still think his numbers are useful for working out minimum numbers produced.
Not, there were "only" 76 FG 1996 guitars produced in 1964, but rather they made at least 76 FG 1996 guitars in 1964 of an unknown total.
1966 538 collected of 4808 total = 11.18%
1967 608 collected of 4876 total = 12.46%
1968 294 collected of 1781 total = 16.51%
1969 090 collected of 0642 total = 14.02%
1970 100 collected of 0354 total = 28.24%
1971 109 collected of 0837 total = 13.02%
1972 207 collected of 1768 total = 11.71%
1973 682 collected of 7654 total = 8.91%
1974 611 collected of 8015 total = 7.62%
1975 646 collected of 8576 total = 7.53%
1976 732 collected of 8072 total = 9.07%
1977 462 collected of 6120 total = 7.55%
1978 633 collected of 7659 total = 8.26%
1979 581 collected of 5921 total = 9.81%
1980 592 collected of 5235 total = 11.31%
1981 465 collected of 4504 total = 10.32%
1982 361 collected of 3092 total = 11.68%
1983 206 collected of 1654 total = 12.45%
1984 214 collected of 1604 total = 13.34%
1985 265 collected of 2367 total = 11.20%
1986 361 collected of 3560 total = 10.14%
Total number collected from this twenty year period = 8757
Total number RIC produced from this twenty year period = 89099
Percentage of total collected (as an average anyway) = 9.83%
Now how many of those 89099 instruments were double bound 4005 basses???
That is a much harder question to answer!!
