Hi, I found this website on how to read
Hi, I found this link to be a good guide on interpreting
Coach Creed. I think first letter and number is the year and month and last letter what Coach Plant is was produced, last 4 numbers is the style.
http://coachbagrehab.blogspot.com/2012/04/guide-to-dates-of-vintage-coach-bags.html?m=1
To repeat the warning BeenBurned posted - do NOT use that guide.
I've been trying to correct the bad information that you found on that website for at least ten years, maybe more. Those dates were originally posted, as far as I can tell, on a site called TheBagForum some time around 2007 by a member whose name might have been "ellen" or something similar, and they were already wrong back then. Since then, that bad information has been Copied & Pasted multiple times on other sites and almost none of the posters, or in this case, REposters, including a seller at Ebay whose name included "mr" and a motorcycle brand and an early jumbo jet and who posted his re-copy some time around 2009, has ever bothered to check to see if the dates and other information are actually correct. They're not, and they never have been. Some of the dates are at least 10 years off. (After the Salearea Guides began to be posted at Ebay beginning in 2011, a few of the mistakes in Mr-motorcycle-jumbo-jet's guide began to be corrected, but never completely and the original uncorrected versions can still be found on various websites like the one you recommended. In fact a very close associate of the writer of the blog you posted was still recommending a "guide" with all that incorrect date information up until a few months ago.
The blog writer also said in that blog "just got this one yesterday and I actually gave it a bath and moisturized it with extra virgin olive oil," Please, don't EVER use olive oil, extra virgin or otherwise, on a leather handbag! Olive oil or any other edible oil can go rancid.
Just one example - the page you linked to says
"These bags are referred to as "New York City" bags, they were made in the original Coach factory in New York City. That factory operated from the late 1960s through the mid 1980's. Notice the "LEATHERWARE" in tiny block letters underneath the word Coach at the top of the creed." But the NYC factory operated(although at lower capacity) into the 1990s and as a source for pilot and sample bags for a few years afyer that. Just because the creeds no longer said "Made in New York City" doesn't mean that the plant was closed.
Bad, poorly reseached misinformation like that is one of the reasons why I agreed to research and write what are known as the Salearea Coach Guides at the request of Ebay seller "Salearea" back around 2011.The difference between the Salearea Guides and the innaccurate ones that came before it is that I actually RESEARCHED the subject, instead of copying it from someone else's nonsense I found on the internet.
The information on Coach company history was found at the excellent Funding Universe website, the dates seem accurate based on further research:
http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Coach-Inc-Company-History.html
and the other dates for various details on creeds, serial numbers and other production information was gleaned from several years of my own notes taken from Coach catalogs going back to 1981 and coordinated with actual styles from listings and photos on Ebay and other sites, from dozens of bits of information found on various websites and saved to my files and verified whenever possible, and from my own and other Coach collectors and sellers' personal handbag records and recollections. NONE of what I collected and put together was copied from anyone's previous "guides", it was all done step by step, number by number, catalog by catalog, and year by year from stacks of notes that I made by looking through every catalog I could find and noting numbers and dates, most important of which were when each style was introduced as "New" in the catalogs and when it disappeared from the catalog records, along with any re-introductions later on.
Salearea originally posted the six Guides at Ebay in 2011 and 2012. When Ebay deleted all the member-written Guides in 2018, they were posted at Salearea's Facebook page. I went through all of them, updated and added any new information that I'd found since the original postings at Ebay, and posted the updated and corrected Guides here at tPF in 2018. Just to brag a little, there weren't many inaccuracies to correct but there was some new information to add, which I did.
So since I know how much work and time (putting the original Guides together took about 4 or 5 months if I remember correctly) was involved in putting both the original Guides from 2011-12 and the updated Guides from 2018 together, I'm going to toot my own horn and say that if you want ACCURATE information on Coach's history and the timelines of their creeds, serial numbers and other related details, use the Salearea Guides. The older multi-generation version(s) are seriously flawed.
Even the page you linked to has mistakes, Including a creed photo of a K3H- serial number prefix identified as being made in October 2003 and made in the US. Also shown here:
http://coachbagrehab.blogspot.com/2012/03/
However that K3H- creed prefix has been identified as ALWAYS FAKE. Quite a few of the style names in the list of names and numbers are also wrong.
Please note that the second bag you asked about in your most recent question has exactly the same always fake K3H- serial prefix.
If you want accurate, up to date information, it's here:
https://forum.purseblog.com/threads/salearea-guides.983575/
Another well-researched list, the Daria48 Fake Coach Numbers List, is included in the same thread, right after the six Salearea Guides, it has also been checked and updated in the 13 or 14 years since it was first posted in the old Ebay Shoes Purses and Accessories forum.
