Duane Behrens

Looking to identify the model year of a friend's old Nishiki bike, I found a post that references a 7 or 8 figure code, always starting with 2 letters, such as "KA24587."

But the bike I'm looking at does not match that format. The underside of the bottom bracket has 3 definitely separate sets of symbols:

In the middle is stamped the following number (no letters): 5737594
Toward the front is another group of alpha-numeric symbols: G1185
Then to the rear is stamped in larger alpha symbols: WTA

Anyone know what the above may mean, and why they don't match the Wikipedia info (reposted below)?

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Kawamura manufactured frames (1972-1987*)
Serial number format XYZZZZZ where:
X is a letter indicating the market using the following codes:
A= Australia
C = Canada (pre-1985)
E = Europe
K = USA (pre 1985)
W = USA (1985-1987*)

Y is a letter indicating the last digit of the manufacturing calendar year, where A =1, B = 2, C = 3… J = 0. Exception is letter S, used on all frames prior to 1975.

ZZZZZ is a five or six digit number, apparently representing a sequential frame manufacturing number for the year (or era in the case of pre 1975 frames)

Example 1: KA24587 is the 24,787th frame produced in 1981 for the US market.
Example 2: CG231117 is the 23,117th frame produced in 1977 for the Canadian market.
Example 3: WE54612 is the 54,612th frame produced in 1985 for the US market.

Duane Behrens

From another thread, it appears that the "G1185" means the bike was manufactured in November of 1985.

Hummer

Hi Duane,

your Nishiki was built by Giant, not Kawamura of Japan. So you have deciphered the Giant date code correctly.

zukahn1 

+1 based on the serial this should be a 1985 made by Giant basic chro-mo frame.