Roland opened the digital accordion era with the V-Accordion: the FR-7 arrived in 2004, followed by the FR-7x and FR-8x generations, each with piano and button variants. Uniquely among the makers here, Roland serials carry a decodable alphabetic month code — this archive reads it, for the confirmed window March 1989 – October 2010.
The record makes room for uncertainty when a precise year is unavailable.
Factory and production era appear alongside the date when supported by a source.
See the source behind a match and what still needs to be confirmed.
Alphabetic date code 1989–2010 · 24 V-Accordion models catalogued.
Open the serial lookup →Roland uses an alphabetic date code, not an engraved running number series, so this file carries no numeric ranges. For units built between March 1989 and October 2010 the date is decoded with the month-code table (extension below); for units built after October 2010 the counter is exhausted and no published/confirmed continuation rule was found - those serials cannot be dated from the number (honest no-data). Roland itself publishes no public date table: its help centre only describes where the serial sticker sits and how many characters it has, and it dates instruments for a fee. No V-Accordion-specific serial example with an independently known build date was found in this pass, so the applicability of the 1989-2010 grid to FR instruments is assumed from the generic Roland/BOSS scheme (confidence medium), not proven per model.
A white label on the underside or rear panel; on battery-powered units also inside the battery compartment (FR-8x: the compartment on the underside). The number is repeated on the box UPC label. The exact spot varies by era and instrument type — the serial number guide walks through the common locations.
Recheck the characters exactly as marked, including any letters and leading zeros. Letter-prefixed numbers often belong to student or non-domestic lines that cannot be dated from the number. Some production periods may simply not be covered yet.