As with many others, none of my three Strads are dated. Has anyone tried to correlate body styles, logos, etc. with Strads with dates?
Just -where- in the interior does a body look for the date stamp? Is there a common location? I have not yet dug out the inspection mirror, but it's just a matter of minutes now.
Per bmac, the year is stamped on the inside back just below the neck attachment..... that's where I found mine, too. I didn't even need a mirror.... good luck. By the way, Tiefster, that sure is a pretty mandolin you've got. Congratulations.
Here is a picture of the inside back of a basket case Strad-O-Lin...it shows the location of the date stamp.
On my Stradolin dating 1935 (or '36) the date stamp is in roughly the same place (as in this photo) though a little closer to the neck mounting block. On mine the tonebars (braces) run across the grain from side to side above and below the f holes. They make reading the date stamp impossible without using mirrors. I don't know how others are typically braced but had I not taken the mando apart for repairs I probably still wouldn't know the date was in there. Bart
Mine has a stamp (1936) in a similar place. I could just see it without a flashlight. I often wonder if there is any rhyme or reason to the shapes of the f-holes. Mine are very comma shaped and I think later models are round.
The stamp on mine (1940) is in roughly the same place as the one in the pic but it is in red ink. The mandolin is a brownburst with the arched script logo and weird doodad in the center of the headstock.
