Serial number dating / Microphones
Microphone dating
Date a Shure or Electro-Voice microphone from the date code on it. Pick the maker, enter the code, and we read it against the maker’s own scheme.
Can't read a digit? Type ? in its place. Looked-up serials are kept, never tied to you. How it works
Type the serial or code from the instrument. We read it as you type.
Date by maker
About microphone dating
How microphones date
A microphone’s date is in a code, not usually in its outside serial. Shure stamps a date code on the internal element (unscrew the handle): before 1961 a year digit then a two-digit week, from 1961 a year letter then a month letter. Electro-Voice stamps a four-digit code on the body, the year then the week. We read each the way its maker wrote it.
Not every microphone dates from a code. Neumann bodies date only from the factory’s delivery records and the capsule features; AKG kept no serial log and dates by model and capsule; RCA’s engraved numbers are broadcaster asset tags. For those, the maker or the capsule, not a serial, is the answer. And a part inside any mic with an EIA date code can be read with the pot and speaker code reader.
How sure is it
Every result carries its confidence. A Shure element code and an Electro-Voice stamp date a mic well. The Shure year letter repeats every twenty years, so it offers both candidate years; the model tells you which.