Vivitar serial numbers

From Camera-wiki.org
Revision as of 23:06, 14 February 2012 by Steevithak (talk | contribs) (Manufacturers: updated kino link)
Jump to: navigation, search

Sources

This list should not be considered definitive. Vivitar never published any public documentation of their serial numbering system. The information presented here is collected from various sources. The sources are cited as used but note that most are not authoritative. Much of this information is the result of individual research by lens collectors. Many variants of this list can be found online, sometimes with unsubtantiated claims that the list was provided by Vivitar insiders. In any case, there are many documented exceptions to the numbering system presented here, especially in lenses with very early or unusual badging (e.g. "P&B Vivitar" or "Vivitar Professional") and in lenses sold late in the history of Vivitar. The consensus seems to be that lenses sold in the 1960s and earlier did not use this system. There is also agreement among collectors that after 1990, this system fell into disuse or was completely abandoned.

Gordon Lewis, who worked at Vivitar in the 1970s and 1980s, was a Vivitar Product Specialist, handled consumer relations for Olympus OM products, and authored many Vivitar instruction manuals, lends credence to the use of a serial numbering systems:

"I don't know [that serial numbers represented manufacturers] for a fact but I can't imagine them not having manufacturer codes in the product serial numbers. As you know, Vivitar was primarily a marketing and distribution company, so if only for the sake of inventory management and quality assurance it would need to know which manufacturers were supplying which lenses, cameras, flashes, etc. I designed the product codes for Kiron and although in our case there was only one manufacturer (Kino), the numbering was by no means arbitrary."[1]

Serial Number System

The first two digits of the serial number identify the manufacturer. Some say the third digit represents the last digit of the year of manufacture (e.g. a '4' could mean 1974 or 1984). Likewise, some say the fourth and fifth digits represent the week number of manufacture. The remaining digits would be the actual manufacturing sequence number. There are known exceptions to the year/month portion of the formula.

Manufacturers

References

Links