Serial number lookup
Martin serial number lookup
Look up a Martin serial against the company's published year-end figures. Martin has numbered its guitars in one unbroken sequence since 1898, which makes them the most reliably datable instruments here.
How Martin numbering works
Martin does not encode anything in its serial numbers. There is no year digit, no factory code and no month — just one continuous sequence that began at 8,349 in 1898 and has been running ever since. Dating a Martin means finding which year's block of numbers your instrument falls into.
That simplicity is why Martin dating is the most dependable in this reference. The company publishes the last serial number issued in each year, so the lookup is arithmetic rather than interpretation. The only real caveat is at the edges: those are year-end totals, and an instrument numbered in late December was often shipped the following January. Where a serial sits close to a boundary, we show the neighbouring year too.
Two things the sequence does not cover. Martin ukuleles, mandolins and other instruments were numbered in separate series that this table cannot date. And since the late 1990s some models have been built at Martin's Navojoa plant in Mexico while sharing the same numbers, so the serial dates the instrument without establishing where it was made.
Key facts
- One sequence since 1898
- Beginning at 8,349. Nothing before that is covered.
- Year-end figures
- Martin publishes the last number issued each year, and dating works backwards from that.
- Model stamped above
- The neck block carries the model designation directly above the serial, which is the fastest way to confirm what you have.
- Guitars only
- Ukuleles and mandolins used entirely separate sequences.
What goes wrong
- Reading the model stamp as part of the serial. They sit together on the neck block and are separate numbers.
- Treating a year-end figure as a hard cut-off. Instruments near a boundary can belong to either year.
- Assuming a recent serial means Nazareth. The X Series and some Road Series models are built in Mexico under the same sequence.
- Trying to date a ukulele or mandolin against the guitar table. It will produce a confident-looking answer that means nothing.
Formats this lookup reads
Every format below has been sourced, documented and covered by tests before shipping. Formats we cannot verify are deliberately absent.
| Format | Period | Confidence | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sequential serial number (1898 onwards) | 1898–2020 | high | 29 July 2026 |
| Serial beyond the published table | 2021–2030 | low | 29 July 2026 |