• Regal Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers
• Bass Guitar Serial Numbers
• Regal Guitar Serial Number 9710159

There are no numbers on the guitar in question because Saga/Regal probably didn't give their guitars serial numbers when they started selling them. You should contact Saga Music (sagamusic.com) for identification of your guitar. Assuming it's a Regal RD-45, I would guess a worth between $200 and $400 in the condition shown in the photo.

1. There are no numbers on the guitar in question because Saga/Regal probably didn't give their guitars serial numbers when they started selling them. You should contact Saga Music for identification of your guitar. Assuming it's a Regal RD-45, I would guess a worth between $200 and $400 in the condition shown in the photo.
2. Im having trouble decoding the serial number on my dobro. Im wondering the year. Its a d style, wood body. Some codes ive seen say the last 2 are year digits, but the guy i bought it from said he bought it new in the 80s.

The Regal Musical Instrument Company is a former USmusical instruments company and current brand owned by different companies through the ages. By the 1930s, Regal was one of the largest manufacturers in the world.

Since its inception, the Regal name has been used in a wide range of resonator instruments, such as guitars, mandolins and ukuleles. Nowadays Regal is property Saga Musical Instruments, with its instruments manufactured in Korea and distributed in San Francisco, United States.^[1]

Currently, only resonator guitars are sold under the Regal brand. All are manufactured in Korea and then distributed in the United States.^[1]

History[edit]

Emil Wulschner, a retailer of Indianapolis, opened his first music instruments factory –'Emil Wulschner & Son' in 1896 to build guitars and mandolins. Products were sold under three brand names: Regal, University and 20th. Century. Wulschner died in 1900,^[1] and the new owners renamed the company the 'Regal Musical instrument Manufacturing Company' in 1901 and continued using the Regal name on instruments through 1904.

In 1904, Lyon & Healy purchased rights to the brand Regal. Four years later, the company officially re-introduced the Regal name^[1] in Chicago, establishing their factory there. Lyon & Healy set Regal up as an independent company in 1924.

During its first years of existence, Regal only marketed 4-string instruments such as ukuleles and tenor guitars. The production of 6-string guitars would began later. The Regal brand was heavily involved in the production of resonator fretted instruments from their first development until 1941, manufacturing components and bodies for both the National and the Dobro companies which they acquired in 1934, though the Dopyera brothers still produced the resonator cones for them. The bodies of their laminated bellied guitars were particularly suited to resonator conversion.^[2]

In the early 1930s, Regal had licensed the use of Dobro resonators. When National moved from California to Chicago, Regal acquired the rights to manufacture Dobro instruments. That made Regal be another producer of 'house brand' guitars before World War II.

Production of resonator guitars ceased in 1941, and of all fretted instruments in 1954. That same year, Regal close down as a company, and its rights to the name and assets were sold to the Harmony Company. Harmony owned Regal for a brief period so Fender took over the brand in the late 1950s.^[1] In 1965, Fender distributed five models of banjo under the Regal name, as the 'exclusive distributors'. It is not clear when Fender ceased to commercialised Regal products.

In an effort to reintroduce the brand to global markets and focusing on overseas production sources, Saga Musical Instruments acquired the Regal name in 1987 and has steadily produced a complete line of metal and wood body resophonic instruments.^[1]

Brand owners[edit]

• Emil Wulschner & Son (1896–1904)
• Lyon & Healy (1904–1954)
• Harmony Company (1954–late 1950s)
• Fender (1950s–?)
• Saga Musical Instruments (1987–present)

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcdefThe history of the famous Regal guitar on Jags House website
2. ^Regal Musical Instrument Co. on Lardy's Ukulele Database

External links[edit]

• Regal on Saga Music website

Regal Acoustic Guitar Serial Numbers

NOTES ON SERIAL NUMBERS:

7 or 8 DIGITS stamped in the back of the headstock:
(D)DMMYNNN
DD= day of the month (01 to 31)
MM= month (01 to 12)
Y= last digit of the year (ex: 1992 = 2)
NNN = production number 000 to 999 resetted every year

NOTES:

- year '7' can be 1987 or 1997, '8' can be 1988 or 1998, '9' can be 1989 or 1999! You have to look at the models in production that year.

Bass Guitar Serial Numbers

- lot of old esp's does not have any serial on the back of the headstock. If you are lucky you can find a serial written on pencil where the body is bolted to the neck (or in the neck also) or in one of the pickup cavities.

SERIAL UNDER PICKUPS:

For example my MX-220 have serial '#80129' that means was made the 08-1991 number 29)

K = ESP Kiso Factory (Japan) / set-neck and neck-thru only;

S = ESP Sado Factory (Japan) / bolt-on only;

T = ESP Takada Factory (Japan) / ESP Custom Shop

Regal Guitar Serial Number 9710159

SS = ESP Standard Factory / Signature Series or Standard Series

CH = Craft House

CS = Craft House (used rarely)

TH = Technical House

N = Nagano Factory

YY = last two digits of the year
WW = week of the year (max.52)
D = day of that week: 1 = monday, 2 = tuesday,... (max.7)
NN = number off the line that day (max.99)
EXAMPLE: the code of my MX-250 K0604202 means the manufacturing date is 24.01.2006 and it was the 2nd guitar built that day.