What is the manufacturing date of a sigarms p229 serial number ae24826?

Answer 1

There is no absolute reference on SIG Sauer serial numbers available to the general public, but there is some useful information available that's been compiled by SIG users.

Previous German-manufactured SIG Sauers had the proof test year stamped on the barrel using the code below:

A=0, B=1, C=2, D=3, E=4, F=5, G=6, H=7, J=8, K=9

You'll probably see a "P" stamped on the barrel lug on your P229, which means it was proofed in the US at the Exeter, NH facility. U.S. proof stamps do not carry a date code, evidently because the proofing was done internally at Sigarms rather than by a testing agency as it is in Germany.

The P229 has the year of manufacture encoded in the first two characters of the serial number, but it appears to follow a different code. All P229 serial numbers in the references I've found begin with "A". Year of manufacture seems to be:

AB=92, AC=93, AD=94, AE-95, AF=96, AG=97, AH=98, AI=99, AK=2000

These codes are anecdotal: They're based on owner reports compiled on the sigforum.com user forum. As with any such list there are some inaccurate entries. A good guess in that your P229, serial number AE24826, was assembled in Exeter in late 1995.