Originally Posted by
T-Mar
I assume the backwards 'C' is actually an incomplete zero, as another Safari ten had a S/N format with a letter only for the 3rd character. So maybe the 1st character is incomplete too? Regardless, neither match the Miyata format, so it's obviously another manufacturer, possibly Taiwanese. It's tempting to to say that C is the 3rd year of the decade (i.e. 1983), as this was fairly common among Asian manufacturers. However, this was not always the case, so you are best using the component date codes, per the components page of the Vintage-Trek website. Component date codes are typically within a year of the bicycle model year.
Cool. Thanks.
On my front derailleur, the letters FE appear, but they look less like a date code and more like a logo. If it is a date code, it's May of 1981.
You can see the FE on the outer facing surface of the derailleur. Is this the date code? It doesn't look like one to me, but it's the only thing I see that's even close to the format.
