Question about Gemeinhardt serial number

[Thomas T]

We have a 3SHB flute (open hole with b foot) that has a serial number of 433094. This number does not show up on any of the Gemeinhardt serial number lists I found on line. I would like to know the mfg year but for some reason I cannot find this number within any of the listed ranges for the 3SHB flutes. Anyone have any info?

[pied_piper]

It seems that between 1992 and 2003 Gemeinhardt got a bit lazy about keeping track of their serial numbers. If you look at the serial number list on their web site you see that no serial numbers are listed for those years. When they resumed posting the serial numbers, they apparently started with a different number sequence.

http://www.gemeinhardt.com/support/seri ... ookup.html
http://www.musictrader.com/Gemeinhardt_ ... _guide.pdf

Your flute was most likely made in the middle of that void. Unfortunately, there no way to know precisely what year it was made. All we can do is extrapolate from the data that is there. In the years leading up to 1992, they produced, on average, about 4547 flutes per year. During those years, they produced as few as 127 and as many as 7799, so there are no guarantees that they were consistent in the production quantities. However, if we assume that they continued to produce approximately 4547 in each of the subsequent years, we can "guess" that your flute was made in 1998 (+ or - 1).