BOSS Serial Number Decoder

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Tue Aug 20, 2013 6:30 am

Not sure if you cats have this link or not, but my buddy showed it to me today while we were sorting out my pedal board
http://www.bossarea.com/serial/sndecoder.aspx

Turns out my Japanese Boss CE-3 was made in August of 1984, about 9 years before I bought it..

Zack · Post by **Zack** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:06 am

This is cool, I haven't checked but I think all my other boss are like 90s or 00s. The os-2 I don't use is from '88.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 8:27 am

This is great. Now pedal nerds can argue that their 1986 Boss pedal, the circuit for which has mostly remained exactly the same right up to the present day, is worth more because they can categorically prove it was manufactured, oh, some years ago.

But nah, I guess it is interesting in a way to find that a pedal you bought second-hand in 1998 was actually built earlier in the decade. I like imaging the history of objects I bought second hand, but to be honest most of that involves having been owned by women with large breasts, rubbing them all over the item in question, immediately before making it into my hands.

"1989? Fuck, that's alot of tits."

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Wed Aug 21, 2013 9:04 am

ekwatts wrote:This is great. Now pedal nerds can argue that their 1986 Boss pedal, the circuit for which has mostly remained exactly the same right up to the present day, is worth more because they can categorically prove it was manufactured, oh, some years ago.

But nah, I guess it is interesting in a way to find that a pedal you bought second-hand in 1998 was actually built earlier in the decade. I like imaging the history of objects I bought second hand, but to be honest most of that involves having been owned by women with large breasts, rubbing them all over the item in question, immediately before making it into my hands.

"1989? Fuck, that's alot of tits."

heh, yeah

I'm in the same boat, i just thought it was kinda cool

71Smallbox · Post by **71Smallbox** » Thu Aug 22, 2013 5:05 pm

ekwatts wrote:This is great. Now pedal nerds can argue that their 1986 Boss pedal, the circuit for which has mostly remained exactly the same right up to the present day, is worth more because they can categorically prove it was manufactured, oh, some years ago.

In some cases, the earlier pedal is in fact better, the DS-1 for example went through an op-amp change from single to dual op-amp in 1994. The earliest DD-3's are also exactly the same as the DD-2 with analog clocking, but they changed shortly after there introduction to a different circuit with a different main IC and switched to digital clocking.

ekwatts wrote:I like imaging the history of objects I bought second hand, but to be honest most of that involves having been owned by women with large breasts, rubbing them all over the item in question, immediately before making it into my hands.

Thats exactly how I picture all of my used gear