How the code sits in the serial
An Epiphone serial normally opens with one or two letters identifying the plant, followed by two digits for the year, two for the month, and a production sequence. SI04021234 breaks down as Samick Indonesia, 2004, February, sequence 1234.
The month field is the useful part: it has to be between 01 and 12. A serial that decodes to month 15 has been mis-read, or does not follow this format at all.
The factory code table
| Code | Plant | Country |
|---|---|---|
| SI | Samick | Indonesia |
| SJ | SaeJung | China |
| CI | Cort | Indonesia |
| DW | DaeWon | Korea |
| EA | Qingdao (Gibson-owned) | China |
| EE | Qingdao (Gibson-owned) | China |
| FN | Fine | China |
| GG | Guangzhou | China |
| MC | Muse | China |
| KC | Cor-Tek (Cort) | Korea |
| KS | Saein | Korea |
| PW | Peerless | Korea |
| BW | Plant not identified | China |
| I | Saein | Indonesia |
| J | Terada | Japan |
| R | Peerless | Korea |
| S | Samick | Korea |
| U | Unsung | Korea |
| Z | Zaozhuang Saehan | China |
This mapping is maintained collectively by owners and technicians rather than published by Epiphone. It is the least certain part of any Epiphone result, and our decoder marks it as a community source wherever it is used.
Why the codes are less reliable than the dates
Gibson and Fender both publish dating tables. Epiphone does not, and the instruments have been built under contract by a shifting set of suppliers across at least five countries. Plants opened, closed, changed hands and changed names; codes were reassigned.
The result is that an Epiphone lookup is really two claims of different strength. The year and month come from the number itself and are strong. The plant comes from a table that may be incomplete for your instrument and is weaker. We show them separately for that reason, and an unrecognised code still returns a date rather than a guess.
If your code is not listed
Codes that overlap with other brands
Some prefixes are used by more than one manufacturer. KC, for instance, appears on both Epiphone instruments from Cor-Tek and Fender-family instruments from the same plant, because it identifies the factory rather than the brand. If you search without choosing a manufacturer you may see readings from both, which is the honest answer where a prefix genuinely is shared.
Common questions
- What does the letter at the start of an Epiphone serial mean?
- It identifies the factory that built the instrument. The mapping is maintained by the owner community rather than published by Epiphone, so it is reliable for common codes and incomplete for rarer ones.
- My Epiphone serial has no letters at all. How do I date it?
- Some Epiphone production, particularly from China, used plain sequential numbers with no factory prefix. Those cannot be dated with this format, and we will tell you so rather than force a reading.
Last reviewed 29 July 2026. Spotted something wrong? Report a correction.