1980 ST55

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leumas9

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Hey guys i just bought this st55 from a local music store and figured i'd post here. it's a beautiful guitar and i've really been enjoying the tones from it! i only know a few things about it; that it's from 1980 by the serial number and i believe it is a "55N" model referring "natural" color. if you know anything else interesting about the guitar please tell!

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Cool. It’s a beautiful guitar.

The ST50/55 had the U marked pickups. They are hotter than the E marked pickups you find in the ST60 and above.

Your guitar cost 5,000 yen more than the regular ST50 because of the natural finish. This also meant nicer looking wood since it’s visible. Yours has nice grain. Not sure if it’s alder or sen ash. Looks like sen ash to me.

Finish is a thin polyurethane.

Cool that you have the fretboard stamp. They stopped doing that in 1980. Fairly early I believe.

There are stamps inside that might give a more info. We are thinking one number of the stamped production code is the month.

Beautiful guitar. Again congratulations and HNGD!
 
Wow! That’s a fantastically matched 2 piece body with beautiful grain. Well done 🙌🏻 As Sigmania said, the stamps in the (a) neck pocket (b) pickup cavities (c) neck heel, will tell you more about the guitar’s production timeline etc. Your’s is a replica of the ‘54 Strat, but with a laminate rosewood fretboard. You will find useful information in old catalogues - Sigmania has posted a few in earlier threads. You can also take a look at some of the articles I have written about my own STs to piece together more info on your own particular model - https://www.siavintageguitars.com/guitars

Enjoy your new guitar!
 
Hi Guys

that is one beautiful guitar but the serial number or neck is wrong. They are mismatched.
For arguments sake lets call the neck a '79 in that all 1979 rosewood necks had the teardrop/ skunkstripe feature and stamped fingerboard.
The '79 neck was used in the early part of 1980 up to serial number 00096xx that I can see, when the stamped fingerboard was stopped.
Serial numbers restarted at 0010000 and the teardrop/ skunk continued to show up until 0011500 when the last changeover seems to have occurred to no teardrop/skunk necks. All the necks I have on file from 0011995 ST-60 FOR do not have teardrop/skunk.
Remembering that 1979 and 1980 both have the same dimensioned neckplate it is an easy swap.
The body and neck stamps will help determine the change.

regards
Peter Mac
 
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