Kiso, Suzuki F-100

[devnulljp]

Just picked up an old Kiso, Suzuki F-100 acoustic off CL, cheap. It's nothing fancy, but it's cute and it sounds OK. X-bracing, laminate, mother of toilet seat inlays ... not a lot of overtones (but the strings that were on it were pretty old, so I'll let you know what it sounds like with new strings once I figure out a few ... quirks). I think it'll be pretty good for slide though.

Questions: Any way to date these? Pics below.
EDIT: 1972
Label reads (in English, so I'm guessing not a Japan only model):

K. Suzuki
KISO, SUZUKI VIOLIN CO., LTD.
MODEL No. F-100 JAPAN
Serial#: 29034

It doesn't have the "lawsuit" Martin ripoff headstock logo, so I'm guessing later rather than earlier.
1979? early 80s? EDIT: 1972 (It has a zero fret, which were popular in the 80s with trashy guitars to try to fix intonation issues).

Any ideas?

One weird thing; I just took the old strings off to clean it and the strings go right through the top so the ball ends are inside the guitar! The strings are fed _through_ the top, so you need to reach inside to remove them. I'm guessing at some point in its life someone drilled through the string holes in the bridge to do this. Maybe the bridge pins weren't holding or something? Who knows? Is this normal? (I've never had an acoustic with pegs before).

EDIT: Thanks to , I found this with dates, prices, and model numbers.
Looks like mine was made from Oct 1968 to Jan 1973 and sold for the princely sum of Y15,000 in 1968 dropping to Y10,000 for the rest of its lifetime. So, an approximately $100 guitar

Wonder how to decipher that serial #. Without others to compare, it's not possible. Might be meaningless to try anyway. I'm so tempted to use the Japanese calendar dates though: Oct Showa 42 to Jan Showa 48 ...












The strings feeding through the top thing...

[devnulljp]

OK, so I did some digging, using that spreadsheet as a Rosetta stone.
I found a blog here: http://kisosuzuki.blogspot.com/
that has a lot of posts with models and serials. So, I've tabulated as much of the info from that page and my own guitar to try to figure out the serial number scheme.

I'm fairly convinced the first digit of the serial # is the last digit of the year. Beyond that, I don't see a useful pattern (see below)

Also, the spreadsheet gives meaning for some of the letters:
※FH・F：ﾌｫｰｸｷﾞﾀｰ = folk guitar
W・GR・GW：ｳｪｽﾀﾝﾀｲﾌﾟ = Western type
NY：ﾆｭｰﾖｰｶｰ = New Yorker

model# serial# Year Jp year Est. Prod. Year
W-65H 50832 1974-1975 Showa 49-50 1975
F-100 29034 1968-73 Showa 43-48 1972
W150 61281 1975-1980 Showa 50-55 1976
GA-100 50844 ?? ?? ??
?? 20907 ?? ?? ??
K-190J 902 ?? ?? ??
wos 260 BB 90431 ?? ?? ??
T120 10903 ?? ?? ??
W-300 40964 1975-1980 Showa 50-55 Could this be 1974?
WT-65H 80614 ?? ?? ??
W-65HS 80636 ?? ?? ??
KW-150 80697 1975-1980 Showa 50-55 1978
9510 90218 ?? ?? ??
No.18（ｽﾁｰﾙｸﾗｼｯｸ） ?? 1967-1968 ?? ??


Anyone else have a Kiso Suzuki and care to post the model and serial numbers?

Although, the body shape on mine looks more like the F-90 than the F-100 from the 1971 catalogue

[/img]

[viking]

zero fret are not just on cheap guitars its used on many guitars from the uk and germany and elsewhere

[Cannon Jenkins]

I bought a kiso Suzuki model F-100 yesterday at a pawn shop for $40.00. No information whatsoever on the internet. I would leave pics but dont know how. Any suggestions?

[mrblanche]

I'm not sure I'd go with the "zero fret on cheap guitars." My wife bought a very nice Framus (must have been made about 1970, since she bought it in 1972, used) acoustic in Europe in college and it had a zero fret.