Camerosity

Production code 'YRIS' in a Kodak Brownie II 110 The code is hidden below the film advance image by Dirk HR Spennemann (Image rights)

From the early 1940s onwards, Kodak encoded the serial numbers of its lenses, and in many instances, also camera bodies, using a two letter combination prefix which was encoded with the made-up word 'CAMEROSITY.' This resolves as follows:

C	A	M	E	R	O	S	I	T	Y
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	0

The letters represent the last two digits of the year. Thus a lens with the serial number EA12345 would have been produced in 1942

Production code 'YCRA' in a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash The code is stamped inside at the bottom of the camera image by Kenneth Dwain Harrelson (Image rights)

Many of the bodies also use the CAMEROSITY encoding used for the lenses. A number of the 1970s and 1980s bodies have a four letter code, where the last two letters stand for the year and the first two letters stand for the Kodak production cycle in that year. Note that Kodak breaks the year into thirteen four-week cycles, based on the International Fixed Calendar.. Thus the CAMEROSITY code 'YRIS', ie. 0687, indicates that the cameras was produced in the 6th four-week unit of 1987 (ie aprox late May to mid June).