Canon Lens Serial Numbers - Lower = Newer??

J Peters wrote:

Sittatunga wrote:

J Peters wrote:

Has anyone else noticed that newer EF-M lenses have lower serial numbers than older ones?

I have some going back to 2013 which start 9, newer ones start with 1 (all are 12 digits long). This concerned me recently when I bought a new lens and it had a very low serial number. I thought maybe I'd been duped with used, refurbished or new-old-stock, but this numbering system appears consistent with others I've bought. Is there some logic in this?

The first two digits of the serial number are a code for the month and year of manufacture. This is an old article about it, http://www.myphotocentral.com/tutorials/determine-age-of-a-canon-lens/#:~:text=To%20determine%20the%20age%20of%20a%20Canon%20lens,It%20starts%20in%20January%202008%20with%20number%2038. There are some anomalies, you might be able to find a newer version, but it gives you some idea.

Thank you. This is probably exactly what is going on. However there must be a different system for EF-M. For a start the numbers are 12 digits, not 10 as in the article. Secondly my 18-150 number starts with 90 - corresponding to May 2012 - which is before that lens was even a glimmer in the eye of the designer.

So, there is probably some sort of date code being used, just not the exact one documented in the article. Thanks, this has put my mind at rest. My new lenses are new lenses!

The article was written in 2014, and they didn't extrapolate the series into the future.

Assuming the pattern continued, the dates would be the following:

01 = Jan 2013

13 = Jan 2014

25 = Jan 2015

37 = Jan 2016

49 = Jan 2017

61 = Jan 2018

73 = Jan 2019

85 = Jan 2020

01 = Jan 2021 (assuming they start at 1 again beginning of this year like last time)

13 = Jan 2022

(25 = Jan 2023...)

So your EF-M 18-150 lens was probably made in May 2020 (same month as mine) which seems reasonable.

I don't know if they used the pattern for Canon bodies, but my two M200s bought refurb this year start with 01 and 12, which would be Jan and Dec 2021. For my M6ii cameras, one starts with 87 (2020) which works and the other starts with 21 (August 2022) which doesn't quite work as I got it in March 2022.