Pietta Serial Number Lookup

Enter a Pietta serial number to estimate the year it was made — using the national proof house's official page plus the gunmakers' association's published year-of-proof table. the date on these guns is not in the serial number — these makers publish no serial chart at all. Italian law proof-tests each firearm at the Banco Nazionale di Prova, and the proof suite carries a boxed year-of-proof code beside the proof-house marks: full years 1945–53, Roman numerals 1954–74, boxed letter pairs AA = 1975 to CZ = 2020, then two digits. Enter that code — and note it dates the proof, not the manufacture.

How dating a Pietta by serial number works

Most serial charts give one number per year. Pietta is different, and using the wrong method gives the wrong year — so it is worth knowing what the chart actually asserts.

the boxed year-of-proof code — proof year at the Banco Nazionale di Prova, 1945 onward

Italian law requires every portable firearm to pass a proof at one of the national proof houses before it is sold, and the Banco Nazionale di Prova suite carries, beside its symbols, a boxed code for the year of proof. The published table runs in four eras: the full Arabic year 1945–1953; Roman numerals 1954–1974 (the table's own entries for 1971–73 are the mixed forms XX7, XX8, XX9); boxed capital letter pairs from AA = 1975 to CZ = 2020; and from 1 June 2020 the last two digits of the year (20, 21 … 26 as printed). CZ and 20 are both 2020 — the form changed mid-year, and which one your gun wears says roughly when in 2020 it was proofed.

The letter alphabet skips letters — BE and CE are simply absent, and whole second letters (G, J, K, O, Q, R, V, W, X, Y) were never printed — and the skips are part of the published table, not a puzzle to solve. The printed entries stop at 26; the official rule for 2027 is stated but not printed, so 27 is refused here rather than extrapolated. And from 2021 a gun may legitimately show no boxed year code at all: under C.I.P. Decision XXXV-36 the proof house may skip the punch when the gun's own stamped year of manufacture or import equals the proof year.

If your model is not listed, the published chart we hold does not cover it — the tool will say so rather than guess.

Questions

Why does my serial number not give a year?

It falls in a gap between the published ranges, or in a model year the chart does not cover — the tool will show the nearest documented range instead of guessing. A public lookup should not invent an answer. For an Italian-proofed gun: the marking you find may be PN — the black-powder proof mark, not a year; the letter pair may be one the table never printed (BE, CE and the other skips are absent by design); a gun proofed from 2021 may carry no boxed year code at all — under C.I.P. Decision XXXV-36 that is normal, not a failed read, when the gun's own stamped year equals the proof year; and codes past the printed 26 are refused, not extrapolated. None of these is rounded to a neighbouring year.

How accurate is this?

The ranges are reproduced exactly as published in the national proof house's official page plus the gunmakers' association's published year-of-proof table. That is not a factory letter — for a definitive date, the factory records are the authority. The source is the proof house itself (the authority that strikes the mark) plus the Italian gunmakers' association's printed table — manufacturer-grade, but the code dates the proof: proof happens after manufacture, so it is not the manufacture year itself. Where the code is stamped is officially published per weapon type (barrel or monoblock); per-model positions reported by collectors are not treated as authoritative. A re-proof leaves the proof house's marks with a year code that is not the manufacture year.

Where does the data come from?

the Banco Nazionale di Prova di Gardone Val Trompia (Italy's national proof house, official) and the year-of-proof table printed by Conarmi, the Italian gunmakers' association — The date source is Italy's national proof house — the authority that strikes the mark — plus the Italian gunmakers' association's printed year-of-proof table, the same published alphabet as Uberti because it is the same national proof system. The code dates the PROOF (anno di prova), and no manufacture-year label is attached to it.

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