Last night I spent some time looking at the flange or the collar near
the rear element of my Zuiko lenses that had stamps. The followings
were observed:
TNQA
TNH1
TNR2
TNIC
TNO5
TNO8
TNT1
SAG7
SAG6
I then looked at Lee Hawkins' OM FAQ at:
http://brashear.phys.appstate.edu/lhawkins
B21) How can I tell when my OM-{1(N), 2(N), 10} was assembled
to try to figure out code scheme commonality between the
OM bodies and Zuiko lenses.
I then went to the Olympus Japan website
http://www.olympus.co.jp/Profile/
to figure out the lens assembly plant.
I found that there are two plants that assemble lenses
(the website does not specifically say Zuiko, but
lens assembly is one of the operations). One plant
that assemble the lens are by the names of Tatsuno
and the other one is Sakaki (subsidiary).
http://www.olympus.co.jp/Profile/Oljpn/tatsuno.html
http://www.olympus.co.jp/Profile/Subsidiary/sakaki.html
So, I assume first two characters are plant code.
I also assume the fourth alpha numeric from left
signify month - "A" means October. However,
I am not sure how the year is coded. Can "A"
mean 1980 or starting of year coding ? If so,
the newest lens assemble in above list is code
TNT1 - Tatsuno Plant, 1999, January. I bought
this lens brand new in August this year.
Maybe John Hermanson can chip in.
Jim Terazawa
frieder.faig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 12:36:24AM +0000, Giles wrote:
> >
> > More recent lenses, at a guess I would say those manufactured in the
> > 80's, already hava date code on them in the form of a group of white
> > letters near the rear element. These letters denote the particular
> > factory which made the lens and the year and month.
> >
> interesting, does such a code look like `SAD3' or 'TND8' ?
> -But What`s the year, and what`s the month? - Are there
> any informations available how to decode this letters, or are all
> of my Zuiko`s pretty old? - Hmm, the only one I bought new
> in 1995 - doesn`t even have any letter near the rear element,
> guess the dealer was pretty happy finally selling it to me.... ;-).
>
> Frieder Faig
>
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