Fret markers on guitar necks
Given that classical guitar fretboards sometimes have no marker dots, why do virtually all other guitars have them? I guess the basic 5, 7 and 12 fret markers correspond to the first few harmonic nodes, and these continue on to 17, 19 and 24, but why the others? Apart from idiosyncrasy, a 1st fret marker seems superfluous!
Which was the first guitar maker who produced guitars/basses with markings?
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Not sure how to trace back before this, but the first ever electric guitar, Rickenbacker's 'frying pan' [1931] had fret markers - though starting at 5.
Rickenbacker to this day don't mark fret 1, though they later added markers at 3 & 15.
Looking at The Guitar Magazine - Born in the USA, an article about Rickenbacker, they didn't add the 3rd & 15th fret markers until after The Beatles started using them.
My own 4001 from 1976 has them though - so sometime between those dates.
Or could just be a design choice for those models - rickenbacker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5709
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