duna said:Each year is indicated by a letter of the alphabet: i.e. 2006 is J last year was I, the year before was H and so on. So if if you want to know what year an older bag was made in , you just go backwards with the alphabet. I have a bag that was made in 1997 and has the letter A, the year before that will be Z. Once you get to Z you start again from A.
What I don't know is when Hermes actually started using the Alphabet.
I have also heard that the geometric symbol helps with the dating. For instance a J in a rectangle stands for 2005 and you work backwards from there until you get to an A in a square, and then the previous year would be a Z in a circle and you work backwards from there, so you can go back pretty far.