Cat’s Eyes Model Based Serial Numbers (Terawaki Factory) Production Guitars, Scarf Joints

Sigmania · Nov 26, 2023

Just gathering these to try to sort out what years this serial number system was used.

These apparently ran concurrently with the serial number system that ended with the year made. So far these are all 450,000 yean and under. The other type of serial number system are all 400,000 yen and above. Seems as if the two types were made in different locations.

Cats Eyes Serial Numbers Ending in Year Made

"Raw guitars produced at the headquarters factory in Terawaki were mainly mass-produced products. We produced CE150-CE300 mass-produced products and CE400-CE600 semi-manufactured products. Luxury handicrafts with a CE rating of 800 or higher were made at the "Terashima Factory" on the south side of Hamamatsu Station."

Norihiro Yoshida's Blog, Tokai Employee 1979-1984

Further, I am seeing scarf joints on every one of these that I can see clearly. I have to wonder if at least part of the manufacture of these was done in Korea and then final work and inspection done in Japan? That would account for the inspected by labels as well.

There were several styles of labels that correlate with known dates of labels using a date based system.

1975 (fancy)

1976 (orange rectangular label)

1977/78 (parchment rectangle)

Models represented:

180
180W
200
200D
250 (second most common)
250ST
300 (most common)
380T
400CF
450D

Sigmania · Nov 26, 2023

This guitar seemed like a good place to start.

It has a truss rod cover betraying that it is an early Cats Eyes model.

Model based serial number.

Serial number is starts with the model number, 300.

CatsEyes キャッツアイ CE-300 アコースティック... - Yahoo!オークション