Hermès Date Stamps By Year
Once you have located the date stamp, you can begin dating your Hermès bag. Hermes Date Stamps are grouped into five distinct eras:
The first era is from the founding of their leather goods department in 1922 until the year 1944. Leather goods of this era will not have any stamps at all, as the system containing a date code was not enacted until the second era beginning in 1945.
The second era saw the introduction of the Blind Stamp and it took the format of a single letter. This system was in place through the end of the alphabet, ending twenty-five years later in 1970.
The third era was a variation on a theme. The letter system began to incorporate a circle enclosed around it, and it is the combination of the letter and the surrounding circle shape that identifies a bag between the years of 1971 and 1996.
The fourth era followed suit to the second and third, only this time replacing the enclosed circle with a perfect square. Again, we see that the date code with the letter and the surrounding square shape identifies bags between the years of 1997 and 2014.
The fifth and final era took the last three eras and threw them completely out the window. From the year 2015 onward, Hermès has been using a more streamlined Blind Stamp system with a date code. Bags created in this time feature a stamp in an L LL NNN LL format, wherein the first letter in the string is the Date Stamp, and the following letters and numbers represent the Craftsman Stamps. Seeming to return to where they began, the letters in the Date Stamp are not accompanied by a distinct shape.
A handy tip for beginners to assess the age of their Hermes bags is to note that the D Square stamp is the year 2000 and to count through the alphabet until the correct year is reached.
If you need a more complete guide, take a look at our Date Stamp handbook:
Notable Anomalies
Over the many years that Hermès has been manufacturing handbags there are a few anomalies that have cropped up, causing some confusion. Let’s take a look at two of the most common.
2011 Double-Blind Stamp
On a handful of handbags in 2011, a curious Hermes stamp appears that seems entirely intentional. In this stamp, the stamp “O Square” was interlinked with a “J” Craftsman Stamp. The reasons for this hodgepodge are unknown but it has been sighted on a plethora of handbag styles throughout 2011.
