LOUIS VUITTON
YEAR OF PRODUCTION
How to identify the age of your LOUIS VUITTON?
Are you considering purchasing a beautiful, luxury LOUIS VUITTON item? Or maybe you want to sell yours. In those cases, it will be good to know the age of the item.
To help you with this, LOUIS VUITTON uses date codes on their luxury products. Nowadays they use data chips. Curious to find out more about this and how you can become a pro at decoding? Keep on reading!
WHAT IS IT?
You might know that CHANEL uses serial numbers to help you identify the series of your item. LOUIS VUITTON has a similar tool for you to check the age of the item: a date code. Is it unique for each item? No, but it tells you the manufacturing date and place of the item. Very important information!
DO ALL LOUIS VUITTON ITEMS HAVE A DATE CODE?
The answer to this question is no. The popular designer brand started adding the codes in 1982 and they recently stopped doing this (nowadays they use data chips). Can’t find either a date code or a chip? There can be various reasons for this: the date code might have faded away due to the age of a heavily used item, or the item has been made before 1982.
READY TO START DECODING?
Most date codes of LOUIS VUITTON consist of two letters, combined with four digits. The two letters indicate where the item was made, and the four digits indicate when it has been created. However, over the years LOUIS VUITTON changed the combination of these letters and digits.
1982 – MID 1980S
If your item was made between 1982 – mid 1980s you will see a 3- or 4-digit code, which indicates the year and month of manufacturing. The first two digits represent the year and the last one or two numbers indicate the month.
EARLY 1990S – 2006
Another change took place. LOUIS VUITTON started to mix the digits and letters in a different order. If your LOUIS VUITTON item was made between the early 1990s and 2006, the date code will start with the country code (the two letters), followed by the first and third digit (indicating the month) and second and fourth digit (indicating the year of manufacturing).
2007 – 2020 FEBRUARY
What changed between 2007 and February 2020? Instead of using months, LOUIS VUITTON indicated the week. For example: the code starts with two letters (indicating the country), followed by four numbers. The first and third numbers indicate the week and the second and fourth numbers indicate the year.
MARCH 2021 – PRESENT
From March 2021 until present the date codes are no longer placed and instead, LOUIS VUITTON started to use invisible microchips in their items to indicate where and when the item was made and when and where it was sold. Why did they do this? To tackle the replica market. Only LOUIS VUITTON employees can scan this microchip and see the information.
Now that you are a pro in decoding your (next) LOUIS VUITTON, you can make a well-considered choice. Ready to shop? Check out our LOUIS VUITTON collection and get your next unique dream item, professionally authenticated by our team.
