De-coding a Serial Number

[Gordon325]

Does anyone know of a way to tell by the serial number (by brand) when the ball was manufactured.

My Virtual gravity starts with 09, knowing this ball was manufactured in 09 I can only assume that storm starts theirs of with the year.

I have an old White Dot and an old Super Beast though (both columbia 300) which I am not sure on both had previous owners the SB serial number starts with a 7 and from what I found online the SB started manufacturing in 1997 .. my WD starts with a 9 which makes me assume it was made in 1999... BUT

is there a place or site that lists how to read the serial codes per brand to know for sure when they were made?

Thanks


-Gordon

[bowl1820]

Every manufacturer codes their serial numbers differently. I'm just guessing now, but I think 09 means it was made in year 201(0) September(9th month).

[Gordon325]

I purchased the ball in February of 2009 though, that's the thing about the VG... cuz that was my initial thought as well.. until i looked into when I purchased it

[Gordon325]

I know at my work power tools are ALL date-coded some used obvious codes such as 1109 (November 2009) same get a little more creative and use letters A thru L represent on of the 12 months so on some of the tools if it was November 2009 it would be date coded as K9 or K09 or 09K etc... some also use random letters ( we have cheat cheats that let us know though at my work) I can only assume there is a cheat sheet for bowling balls out there some where.

[bowl1820]

well there you are I wasn't sure. some have used a number/number for year and month, some use number/letter for year and month and other different still. If there is a cheat sheet for the numbers I haven't ran across one. There well maybe one.

[Gordon325]

I am going to ask Storm and Columbia, If I can get one of them to share the secret I will ask the other brands as well and I will do my best to post a cheat sheet here on the site... The main reason I asked is curiosity for my used balls.

[striker12]

yeah idk about this cause my hell raiser revenge was jsut made in 2012 and in janurary and says nothing about that cause there no 2 on my ball only 3's and 1's

[Gordon325]

yeah idk about this cause my hell raiser revenge was jsut made in 2012 and in janurary and says nothing about that cause there no 2 on my ball only 3's and 1's

interesting. maybe they use letters for date as well.

[striker12]

nope cause the letters are A E B

and it was released on jan, 23/2012

[Stormed1]

On pre Ebonite Columbia balls the first digit indicates year. For Storm it's the 1st 2 digits. Brunswick uses a letter code

[The Mayor]

What color is the White Dot?

[bowl1820]

They just posted this in another forum.

Old chart of Brunswick Serial Number codes.

First letter is the month.
A - Jan. B - Feb. C - Mar. D - April E - May F - June
G - July H - Aug. I - Sept. J - Oct. K - Nov. L - Dec.

Second letter is the year
F - 1992 G - 1993 H - 1994 I - 1995 J - 1996 K - 1997 L - 1998 M - 1999 N - 2000
O - 2001 P - 2002 R - 2003 S - 2004 T - 2005 Y - 2006 Z - 2007 A - 2008

But now this has changed since they moved to Mexico.