Wondering how to date your Coach bag using the serial number? Start with Part 1.
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If you have identified your bags is using a serial number from 1994-2000, you can decode it further! Coach made a big change to their serial numbers at this time so that the month, place, year, and style could be determined.
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In the graphic above, I am using X as a letter placeholder, but your bag can have a few different letters. Coach used letters A through M (excluding letter I) to represent the months of the year. So a bag with the letter A in the month position would have been made in January, for example.
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The second number position indicated the year of manufacture. The number corresponds with the last number in the year, so a bag made in 1997 for example would have an 7 as its number in the year position.
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The letter in the place position indicates where the bag was made. Coach made bags primarily in the US, but also in Turkey, Hungary, and Costa Rica. It's not clear that anyone knows what letters mean what here, but you will rarely need to know for reselling purposes. The last 4 digits can be used to google the style name.
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Some exceptions: if you find an F in the serial number (ie-M2593 – F36704) F is for Factory; the style numbers for the Coach outlet stores. Rarely you might see a P for 'pilot' bag, which means the bag was part of the first run of a certain model. If you run into a bag stamped with 00000 where the style number should be, you have found a sample bag. One more exception is early versions of the Dinky and Rogue bags, which have a special style number on them that doesn't follow this format.