Joined: July 2003 Posts: 1922 Location: Canton (Detroit), MI: Agreed, of course a crooked eBayer can lie about make and model now, and there are those who do. It gets a little more upsetting when they can add a legit serial number to it, though. Four-Digit Model Numbers-First digit is always 1. Second digit is type of guitar: 1 Acoustic roundbacks (also semi-hollowbody electrics) 2 Solidbody and semi-hollowbody electrics 3 Ultra acoustics 4 Solidbody 5 Acoustic electric cutaway Adamas and II/Elite/Ultra electric 6 Acoustic electric roundbacks 7 Deep 8 Shallow. The first Ovation guitar made its debut in November 1966. Its Lyrachord body gave the instrument, according to the company, unprecedented projection and ringing sustain. Compared to modern Ovation Guitars, the initial instruments had a shiny bowl that was used again, for example, in the Balladeer 40th anniversary re-issue. Ovation Guitars Look Up By Serial Number You should be looking at a series of number ranges. These are the serial numbers. If you look up at the widget in the top right of the page, you should notice that there are separate charts for three-, four- and six-digit serial numbers. The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments.Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars (both 6 and 12-string versions) and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, it became a subsidiary of Drum Workshop after being acquired from KMCMusicorp. The company's Ovation and Adamas guitars are known for their round backs.

Ovation Guitars Look Up By Serial Number Search

A series of tables and lists that summarise serial numbers, model codes and colors of the Ovation guitars from the beginning to the end of the 20th Century.

Years and models

Original series from 1966

Range	Date	Comment
006-319	1966	three digits in red ink
320-999	1967 (Feb.-Nov.)	New Hartford; three digits in red ink
1000-	1967 (Nov.)-1968 (July)	four digits in black ink, no letter prefix
10000-	1970 (Feb.)-1972 (May)	five digits, no letter prefix
A + three digits	1968 (July-Nov.)
B + three digits	1968 (Nov.)-1969 (Feb.)
B + five digits	1974-1979	Magnum solidbody basses
C + three digits	1969 (Feb.-Sept.)
D + three digits	1969 (Sept.)-1970 (Feb.)
E + four digits	1973 (Jan.)-1975 (Feb.)	solidbodies
E + five digits	1975 (Feb.)-1980	solidbodies
E + six digits	1980 (late)-1981	some UK IIs (does not reflect production)
F, G prefix	1968 (July)-1970 (Feb.)
H, I, J, L prefix	1970-1973	Electric Storm series

Ovation: six digits series from 1971

Range	Date	Comment
000001-007000	1972 (May-Dec.)
007001-020000	1973
020001-039000	1974
039001-067000	1975
067001-086000	1976
086001-103000	1977 (Jan.-Sept.)
103001-126000	1977 (Sept.)-1978 (Apr.)
126001-157000	1978 (Apr.-Dec.)
157001-203000	1979
211011-214933	1980
214934-263633	1981
263634-291456	1982
291457-302669	1983
302670-303319	1984	Elites only
315001-339187	1984 (May-Dec.)	Balladeers only
303320-356000	1985-1986
357000-367999	1987
368000-382106	1988
382107-392900	1989
403760-420400	1990
421000-430680	1990
400001-403676	1991
430681-446000	1991
402700-406000	1992
446001-457810	1992
457811-470769	1993
470770-484400	1994
484401-501470	1995

Adamas: from September 1977

Range	Year
0077-0099	1977
0100-0608	1978
0609-1058	1979
1059-1670	1980
1671-2668	1981
2669-3242	1982
3243-3859	1983
3860-4109	1984
4110-4251	1985
4252-4283	1986
4284-4427	1987
4428-4696	1988
4697-4974	1989
4975-5541	1990
5542-6278	1991
6279-7088	1992
7089-8159	1993
8160-9778	1994
9779-11213	1995

Model numbers

The model 4 digit codes for the original models. Everything changed and became sort of messy from the Seventies, so the best way to be shure is using the Ovation Decoder.

First digit
- 1 – most models born before year 2000
- 2 – contour bowl
- 4 – Japanese Balladeers
- 5 – parlours and some Elites
- 6 -Standard Elites, widenecks, some Adamas
Second digit is type of guitar:
- 1 Acoustic roundbacks (also semi-hollowbody electrics)
- 2 Solidbody and semi-hollowbody electrics
- 3 Ultra acoustics
- 4 Solidbody
- 5 Acoustic electric cutaway Adamas and II/Elite/Ultra electric
- 6 Acoustic electric roundbacks
- 7 Deep
- 8 Shallow
Third digit denotes bowl depth on acoustic and acoustic electrics:
- 1 Standard bowl 5 13/16″ deep
- 2 Artist bowl 5 1/8″ deep
- 3 Elite/Matrix electric deep bowl
- 4 Matrix shallow bowl
- 5 Custom Balladeer Legend Legend 12 Custom Legend 12 Anniversary
- 6 Cutaway electric deep bowl
- 7 Cutaway electric shallow bowl
- 8 Adamas 6 1/16″ deep
Fourth digit denotes model
- 1 Balladeer
- 2 Deluxe Balladeer
- 3 Classic
- 4 Josh White
- 5 12-String
- 6 Contemporary Folk Classic
- 7 Glen Campbell Artist Balladeer
- 8 Glen Campbell 12-String
- 9 Custom Legend (from 1974)
Color code follows hyphen after model number (but I am not quite sure for all of them):
- 1 Sunburst
- 2 Red
- 4 Natural
- 5 Black H Honeyburst
- 6 White
- 7 LTD Nutmeg/Anniversary Brown/Beige/Tan
- 8 Blue
- 9 Brown
- B Barnwood (gray-to-black sunburst)
- H Honey sungurst

Model Chronology

The dates in this chronology reflect actual appearances of models, determined from price lists and the recollections of sales representatives and dealers. They may differ slightly from the first production or official introduction dates in the text.

Acoustic and Acoustic Electric

1964	Charles Kaman chose a small team of aerospace engineers and technicians, several of whom were woodworking hobbyists as well, to work to invent a new guitar. One of these was Charles McDonough, who later created the Ovation Adamas model. Kaman founded Ovation Instruments.
1965	Engineers and luthiers work to improve acoustic guitars by changing their conventional materials. The R&D team builds and tests prototype instruments. Their first prototype has a conventional dreadnought body, with parallel front and back perpendicular to the sides. The innovation is the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. The company is moved from the aerospace facilities of Bloomfield to a new location in New Hartford.
1966	Balladeer introduced. Has a natural top, Grover Rotomatic tuners, dot fret markers, white-black-white binding, small or thin rosette with figure-8 chain link motif and grape bunch at 4 o’clock position. Less than 100 made before February 1967 move to New Hartford factory. The very early have no rosette, some have extra diamond fret markers at twelfth fret.
1967 (Feb.)	Deluxe Balladeer introduced. Essentially a Balladeer with diamonds at twelfth fret, Grover Rotomatics (Balladeer now has Kluson tuners), five-ply top binding.
1967 (Sept.)	Classic introduced. No f