Serial Number dating

[John Araki]

I am really digging my A50mm & my A70-210 lenses. Reminds me of the old Pentax that my dad taught me to take pictures on. From what I remember it had an A50mm on it as well.

Is there some way to input the serial numbers and find out when lenses were made?

[Blue]

The closest way I know to date k mount lenses his here:

http://kmp.bdimitrov.de/lenses/zooms...A70-210f4.html

While it doesn't necessarily tell you exactly when you lens was made, you can figure out the years of production. If you are lucky, you may be able to fix a date to a lens with a known date of production. With your SMC A 70-210mm f4, you can see that it was produced from 1984-88. You will also find that there were several SMC A 50mm lenses produced: f1.2, f1.2 special, f1.4, f1.7, f2 and f2.8 macro. The speed is needed to figure that one out.

There are a couple of other sites for Pentax (takumar) m42 screw mount lenses.

[John Araki]

Thanks Blue,

The a50 is a 1.7, which puts production at about the same time. Makes sense - I was about 10-13 yrs old at the time.