Just registered my 4003.

[BlueHelmet]

Yay! I think the register is a great service. I'll try adding some more hi-res pics later.

One questino though: Upon registration, the form told me to double-check my serial as it appeared to be out of the valid range - is that normal? The Rick serial decoder had told me (AFAIK) correctly that my bass was made in June 1998.

[admin]

Joe: Thanks for your comments and welcome to the RRF. The algorithm used to calculate serial numbers and expected ranges is not perfect. The alert allows those registering to double check when a value is outside the expected or existing range. This may also seen in situations where partial registrations may be submitted. AS Gil wrote the script I will let him respond with a more complete answer.

[gibsonlp]

Rickenbacker's serial decoder doesn't really look at the entire serial, only at the first 2 digits (or 4 for modern instruments).
Our system tries to guess what would be a valid serial number by analyzing the serial - it detects the year and month and then looks on existing serials for the maximum and minimum value+-50.
The problem was that there was a really wrong serial starting with S1 so it kind of tricked the system, I fixed the "bad" serial.

[BlueHelmet]

ah, okay. Thanks!