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Deciphering The Apparent Mystery of the Yamaha FG-360


tcabner

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So I have this acoustic guitar that I've had for years, my Dad gave it to me probably 10 years ago. Never did think much about it, it was just a cheapie Yamaha acoustic, or so I thought. Over the years, I tried to find other acoustics that compared to it in overall tone and projection, never could find anything to equal it. I wanted to get a higher end guitar to replace it, but found it odd when my regular old Yamaha sounded better than most of the guitars I tried out.

Anyhow, fast forward to today, I get to messing with it tonight and decide to look it up online and get some info about it. Turns out it was only made between 1972-75. It has a solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides, which wasn't unheard of at that point in time, but apparently not all that common. Costed $375 new. There were two runs of that guitar in those few years. One was hand made in Japan and was pretty rare. The other was made in Taiwan and is even more rare and was never distro'd in the US. The one in my possession is a Taiwan model made July 8th in 1975 according to the serial number and how it *should* be interpreted. I can't really find any other info on it because Yamaha wasn't exactly adamant about keeping many records back then.

How the hell my Dad wound up with this thing is a mystery to me.

He apparently didn't know anything about it either, he just passed it on to me when I started playing and never said anything else about it. Not to mention he's never been the type to collect things. I've yet to talk to him about my latest findings, but hopefully I'll be able to figure out how he wound up with it.

 

It's still playable and sounds incredible. The only thing is I need to take it to a luthier to get it checked out and see if they can lower the action a little and install a bone nut and bridge. If they can't, then I'll drop the tension on the strings, put it away and get something else, maybe another Yamaha. :cool:

 

Thoughts, suggestions, anyone else got one of these? I did a search on the forum here and couldn't really find anything on them other than reviews. What other little info I've found was on other sites.

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Unfortunately if there is no "S" after the model number (ie: FG-360S) than I am afraid it has a laminate top w/laminated back and sides. Not to worry though since Yamaha made the best laminated tops at that time frame. I owned a Yamaha FG-350W (fancy pickguard) for almost 20 yrs. It's the only guitar I really regret selling. It played like a a dream and sounded great. I paid $180 used for it in 1984 and 20 yrs later I sold it for $300. ;)

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I don't know if you've referenced my site before, but I have made some recent changes about the FG-360.  http://schryver.us/guitars/yamaha/.  I have been studying the s/n scheme and we know that the last three numbers of the 8 digit models represents the unit number but we don't know if it is daily, weekly or what.  Would you share with me the last 3 digits of yours?  By the way, mine was built a couple of weeks after yours, on July 23.  Thanks.

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