Louis Vuitton date code checker, read the year and the factory

Wallets and small leather goods

Wallets, card holders and pochettes carry the same two letters and four digits, read by exactly the same rule, and three independent resale houses give the same position for them: inside the item, along a seam of the bill compartment or a slip pocket. Fashionphile puts it "along a side seam in the billfold or slip pocket" and Yoogi's Closet "on the inner edge of bill compartment"; on an agenda, Yoogi's adds, it is under the flap closest to a seam. On the smallest pieces it is pressed into the leather or the lining rather than given a tab of its own, so check behind a card slot too. Small unlined pieces are also the one place a printed code still turns up after March 2021: where a chip is awkward to embed, the handbook records that the printed code was kept.

This is the best sourced position on the page after the bag: three independent guides, in close agreement, all naming a seam of the bill compartment.

Belts

Go over the whole reverse face of the strap. Be careful what you find there: the one reseller guide that documents Louis Vuitton belts in detail describes the number on the back as a STYLE reference with the size below it, not a date code, and records that some vintage belts carry no number at all. Our sources do not document where a date code sits on a belt, or whether every belt carries one, so we will not point you at a spot as though we knew. If you find two letters and four digits, the rule on this page reads it the same way as on a bag. If you find a longer reference beginning with M, that is the style number and this page cannot date it.

An honest gap, now with the trap named: the number most people find on the back of an LV belt is a style and size reference, and running it through the date rule would produce an answer that is wrong rather than merely unhelpful.

Shoes and sneakers

Nothing in our sources documents where a date code sits on Louis Vuitton footwear, so this page cannot tell you where to look. Two things are worth knowing anyway. Shoes are one of the categories a reseller guide records as still carrying printed date codes after March 2021, alongside accessories, which fits the handbook's own note that small pieces where a chip is awkward to embed kept the printed code. And the important part is still what not to do: do not push a number printed inside a shoe through the bag rule. Two letters and four digits will always produce a month or a week and a year, whether or not the marking was ever a date code.

Size and article references are not date codes. If a shoe marking is all you have, treat the piece as undated here.

Sunglasses and eyewear

Eyewear sits outside what this checker reads. The code on the inner side of a Louis Vuitton temple arm normally begins with Z, for example Z0924U, and the guide that documents it says plainly that this is a STYLE reference rather than a date code; a second, shorter group such as E101 is not one either. Some newer frames additionally carried an ordinary two letters and four digits, and if yours does, this page reads it like any other code. What must not happen is a Z number or a four-character group being run through the date rule.

One source, so this is stated as what that source documents rather than as settled. A pair with no date code is ordinary, especially after March 2021.

Luggage

We looked and found nothing publishable. No authentication guide we trust documents where a date code sits on Louis Vuitton luggage, and hard trunks appear to be a different system altogether, identified by a number on the lock and a label inside and datable only through the brand's own archive, which is not something this page can read. On modern soft and rolling luggage, look where you would on a bag, an interior seam or a small leather tab, and treat what you find as unconfirmed.

Named as a gap on purpose. A trunk lock number is not a date code and must not be typed in as one.

Three ordinary reasons, none of them a fault. Bags made from March 2021 carry a microchip instead of a printed code, and a phone can sense it but cannot read what is on it; small unlined pieces from that period are the exception and often kept the printed code. Pieces from before the early 1980s predate the system entirely, and a lowercase f in the made in france stamp points to that older generation. And a vintage bag that has been relined by the repair service can lose its original code, which is why the book records DK and FO as repair markings with scrambled numbering. Look on a tab inside a pocket, along an interior seam and on the strap anchor before concluding it has none.