what year is my Rhodes?

[cece]

Hi, I just bought a Rhodes Mark II Stage.

I am trying to find out in which year it was made.

The harp production start date code on the tonebar is 3 digits (black ink), not 4! It is 680.

The harp production end date code (also on the upper right hand corner, just under the Badge) is 0904.

On the right hand of this code I can also see another black ink stamp: its a circle and  "FRR 15" is written inside it.

[drcarver]

Sounds to me like it is the 6th week of 1980.  Got a pic?

[cece]

Yes, it should be like that.

But my doubt is about the three digit code. The example in the "Big Help Pages" is 0978: they used 09 to indicate the 9th week. In my case the first two digits should be "06", and the whole code 0680.

What do you think?

[michaeltristan]

hahaha.. how about the 68th week of 2000!  just kidding.

[kphlx2000]

6th week of 1980.

[cece]

It definitely should be 6th week of 1980.

But what about the 3-digit code? Did you see anything similar before? Could this possibly be a fake?

[pianotuner steveo]

It doesn't look fake- that looks like the correct font style-also it has the white pickups, so it makes sense. How about a picture of the front (panel,etc)
Maybe the first 0 was worn away? Any visible trace of it?

[cece]

I was also thinking about that , but no sign of a worn away 0 at all. It really is a 3-digit code.

About the rest of the piano, it definitely looks original.

So, to summarize, did anybody see those 3-digit codes before?

[Ben Bove]

Yes turbojet stamped their numbers with 3 digits around '80.

[cece]

So.. approved that the famous 4 digits code can also be 3 digits!

By the way, who turbojet is?

[Tim Hodges]

So.. approved that the famous 4 digits code can also be 3 digits!

By the way, who turbojet is?

As a quick background, the pickups were installed by a company called Tur-bo Jet. Fender would send the wood rails to them, Tur-bo Jet would install their pickups onto the rail, and then send it back to Fender.

All the dates in the upper right hand corner were applied by Tur-bo Jet as their dating for completing assembly on the pickup rail (most believe it's a Fender date). So when they finished, they stamped "4375" on yours.

The TBJ1-5 stamp, usually a little circular stamp is a quality control stamp. So it looks like an inspector OKed the rail and stamped his number, can't confirm but I see a lot of circular quality control stamps on Fender stuff.

Whenever you see a "TBJ" number in the top right hand corner of a Rhodes, it's actually a part number. All 73's have a TBJ number of 010254 which is the part number (size of the rail), and all 88s have an 010459 TBJ number {size of 88 rail}. they changed in late 1979 with Mark IIs I guess maybe dimensions were changed so new part number... but it's more of an inside thing.

[kramer]

My Mark II has a three digit code two. Thanks for the info.