Is there a method to the serial numbers on Tiagras? As in, do they correspond to dates, factory, etc?
Bantam from Shimano posted this once :-
First letter is the year, second letter is the month, and third letter is the country of manufacture. The list is long so I am not going to type it all since it covers 1976-2015. I will post a couple and you can figure out the rest. We use A-Z for the years, so they reset every 25 years.
Years:
2002- A
2015- N
1990- O
2001- Z
Months are A-L:
Jan- A
Feb- B
Mar- C
Dec- L
Country of origin:
S- SIC (Japan)
P- SCM (Malaysia)
I believe the first gen Tiagras had a month, year, and manufacture code. The year should be a 2 digit code (representing the last 2 numbers of the year), if memory serves me. Maybe Keith or someone can correct me, if my memory is failing me at the moment.
John