Zeiss serial numbers do not contain coded information about when a lens was made. Serial numbers therefor can only be used to date lenses if we have some way to link serial numbers to years. Tables doing just that are compiled by collecting serial numbers of specific lenses together with information about when these lenses were first bought. As serial numbers should be, they gave each lens its own serial number, and counted up. Serial numbers as low as 50,000 are still floating around. Leica made lens number 1,000,000, a 50mm f/1.5 Summarit, on 24 October 1952, at which time they already had onver 100 years of experiance. I just received a new Fuji 90mm lens that I purchased online. I immediately noticed the UPC code on the box was covered with a white sticker. On top of that there's a smaller sticker with another UPC code that does not look like a regular Fuji serial number (LPN RR 038372750).

1. Lens Serial Number Checker
2. Lens Serial Number
3. Nikon Lens Serial Number Lookup

The next number appears to be for internal use. And the final group of 7 digits is the actual serial number of your lens. So following this breakdown you can see on this image that my EF 24-70 2.8 L Mark II lens was manufactured in July 2013 (07). If your Canon lens has a date code then you will be able to tell when it was manufactured. I know Canon have a date stamp on their lenses which allows you to find the exact year. When I am looking at Nikon 180 f2.8 if-Ed in the secondhand market, I can pin the serial numbers down to between 2006 and 2020 from the above mentioned sites but that is quite a gap if the seller can’t provide a history of the lens.

..................................If the serial number of the lens falls between about 13000 and 35587, the task is easy and the lens is likely to be found in the Photographic Lens Books as the lenses are listed in these volumes by serial number.

..................................If the serial number falls outside of the above range then you will need to search the Lens Books and Stock Books. Neither of these two sets of records form a complete series between 1863 and 1900, however between these two sets there are sufficient surviving volumes to cover this period completely.

..................................In these volumes the lenses are listed by type, so to find the right record you have to first identify the lens type you are researching.

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..................................Stock Books contain dates of manufacture and name of the workers involved at each stage of the lens making process.

..................................Lens books contain dates of manufacture, of sale and to whom.

..................................The Stock Book volumes have a page size of approximately 12 x 9 inches, except for Volume 2 which is 14 x 4¹/₄ inches. The serial numbers of the lenses recorded in Volume 2 overlap those recorded in Volumes 3 and 4.

..................................It seems to me that Volume 2 represents a lone surviving workshop record and that the other stock book volumes represent office copies of these workshop records.

..................................The Lens Books are of a similar format to Stock Book Volume 2 and are, I think, also workshop records, an exception is Lens Book 1, of similar size to the Stock Books. It appears to be a partial office copy of a lost workshop original.The Photographic Lens Books also seem to be office copies, page size some 12 x 9 inches, containing the same information as the Lens Book series.

..................................Sadly all the records for 1860, 1861 and 1862, the first three years of Dallmeyer's existance as an independant lens manufacturer, are missing.

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Here is a quick and easy way to get the year of manufacturing of Leica lenses (L, R, and screw mount) based on the serial number which is located on the front of the lens:

Update: A reader just sent me another way of determining the production year of Leica cameras and lenses: just got to this website, and type the serial number.

And another update on the serial numbers after 2004:

Lens Serial Number Checker

4 000 000-4 010 600: 2004
4 010 601-4 025 900: 2005
4 025 901-4 034 900: 2006
4 034 901-4 057 000: 2007
4 057 001-4 080 000: 2008
4 080 001–> 2009

Lens Serial Number

Via Leica Camera Blog Russia

Nikon Lens Serial Number Lookup

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