K Yairi Guitars Serial Numbers

Hi there - I own a K. Yairi classical guitar with a rectangular label inside the sound hole. This label provides the following info: Hand Crafted K. Yairi - Anne 1978 - Model No YC40 - Serial No. 12571 - 53.3.06 - Kani, Gifu, Japan. I live in Denmark so the numbers may be especially European? A discussion group for Alvarez-Yairi and K. Yairi guitar enthusiasts. Pictures of hand making process, info on various models, links, tips, etc. Members are from. Anybody know if the Yairi serial number code applies to the rest of alvarez s line of guitars. I can t find a dang thing on.

Take it slow. Buy her a set of strings first, and maybe she will give you her number.

But seriously, I think it's hard to definitively date Alvarez guitars from that era because the company itself doesn't have accurate records. This site includes some good general info if you scroll down to the Alvarez section: Based on the type of label you have with the eagle, and the Made in Japan, I would have guessed your guitar was built in the late 70's or early 80's.

I believe after 1985 or so their production moved to Korea (and later China for budget guitars). If Alvarez says mid-70's based on the serial number, that's probably the best you're going to get. I'm by no means an expert on Alvarez acoustics, but I hope that info offers at least some help.

This may look a lot like code, so why not use it instead of ImageMagick? The image is then saved to a new file. ImageMagick covers a much wider range of image formats than PIL, and supports better algorithms for image resizing. While this is still in the early stages, it’s workable in a way which I hope is expected and unsurprising: from pythonmagick.image import Image from pythonmagick.color import BLUE i = Image('foo.jpg') i.format = 'PNG' i.rotate(45, BLUE) i.save('flip.png') The above reads in a JPEG image, reformats to PNG and rotates by 45 degrees with a background colour of blue.

O.K., crappy pictures of a beautiful but well used guitar. This has been my number one kick back and play guitar for over 20 years. Laminate construction. Spruce top and Tree of Life inlay. The double A as opposed to the AY logo shows it s definately an Alvarez and not a Yairi. Rosewood back and sides.

Yes, there are screws missing, but it actually stays in tune. The reason I got the urge to date it is because I have finally decided to restore it. I'm starting to lose the binding on the neck (as you can see in the last shot) but I love it too much to replace it. I too have a similar Alvarez made in Japan, 4 digit model no.

Mine is a 5059 autumn heringbone model and there is actually a production date on the tag in the sound hole of 1978. The tag is identical to yours as is the headstock logo inlay. Tuners are different however. Based on the similarities to yours I would date it around the same years, '77-'80. I know the model name due to an Alvarez advertisement clipping that depicts the model I have. I too am getting ready to do some much needed TLC to mine as it has been my most loved acoustic for 20 years now.

It was a gift from my mother who used it in a country band way back when. These are great guitars that can be bought very cheaply when you can find them.

Good luck with the search! Judging by the tag in the sound hole, headstock logo, and general construction of the guitar I would think it's definite made earler than '86. Mine has a tag identical to this one but the date 16 5 78 is stamped onto it and it also has the name of the person who inspected it stamed on it. Interestingly I did notice your guitar has a different truss rod construction than mine. Looks like yours adjusts from the head stock under the cover and mine is an allen adjustment through the sound hole. Don't know if they switched over to your style at a later date.

Food for thought. I have heard of some poeple reffering to these as Yairi built guitars even though they don't carry the Yairi headstock logo.

FWIW: I have the same guitar, and it is around the same vintage as yours, with a 4 digit serial number and the headstock truss-rod adjustment. As you can see from the response from SLM, the headstock truss-rod adjustment was on the earliest Alvarez guitars. I have another Alvarez from 1981-2, that adjusts in the sound-hole. You'll see a lot of people claiming that they have, or are selling, 70's vintage Alvarez guitars, but have sound-hole truss-rod setup. To me, that's the first indicator that a guitar might be post 1980'ish. And actually, due to the neck attachment issues, I gravitate towards the 80's vintage, as they have had less time to have their neck angle change from string tension. My 5056 has pretty high action on it, and these guitars are very bad candidates for neck resets, as the necks were glued with epoxy, not hide glue (which can be softened with heat).

Anyone who looks at buying a vintage Alvarez should bear this in mind if the action is high. There may be no practical remedy (Search web for comments on it.). And those who own them should probably stay away from heavy string gauges, i.e., not bigger than.12's on high 'E'. I now de-tune my Alvarez guitars when I put them away for longer period storage even though I use 11's on them.