amplookup.com is a reference for dating guitar and bass amplifiers by the codes their makers put on them. It covers eighteen makers, 269 models, 119 serial series with 803 ranges, and 74 code systems holding 1,289 entries — the numbers are counted from the data the decoder actually reads.
The core argument of the site is one sentence: an amp is never older than its newest original part. Every result names the system that produced it, the confidence attached to that system, and the caveat that limits it. Where a maker published no usable numbering — as Ampeg did for two eras, and as Peavey, Mesa, Gibson, Gretsch, Supro, Silvertone, Magnatone, Sunn, Standel, Premier and parts of Vox did for longer — the site says so and offers era features, model windows and component codes instead of a guess.
Facts come from maker documentation and reference works first: the Ampeg knowledge base, Fender support, Peavey owner's manuals, Mesa, Orange, Hiwatt and Magnatone material, and the Blue Book listings and dating tools. Community research fills the eras the makers never documented, and each of those sources is named on the amps it supports: Bygone Tones for Celestion codes, Vox AC30 registers, Amp Archives for Marshall, ggjaguar and the Fender Field Guide archive for Fender, Silvertone World, Vintage Kustom, 0rigami for Traynor and vintage47 for Valco.
Nothing on this site is presented as a factory record. There is no affiliation with any manufacturer, no access to production databases, and no claim to identify an amplifier that has not been inspected. Where two sources disagree — the Fender tube-chart letter order, the Marshall Drake-to-Dagnall changeover, the date Fender bought Sunn — the disagreement is written down rather than smoothed over.
The site publishes no prices. Sold-price collection was not completed while this data set was assembled, so value pages describe classes and the factors that move price, and say plainly that no market data has been collected yet.
Corrections are welcome. If a code, a range or a date on this site contradicts a document you hold, write to [email protected] with the model, the code and the source, and it will be checked against the canon rather than argued about.