With vintage bicycles many people want to know: “How old is the bicycle?” The answer to this question keeps changing because the age of anything keeps increasing.

The better question is: “When was the bicycle made?” From the date of origin you can always determine the current age of something.

Many bicycle manufacturers put serial numbers on their products. Some manufacturers put date of manufacture codes on their bicycle frames or other components. Some manufacturers put both a serial number and a date code on their products. Some manufacturers have serial numbers with date of manufacture encoded into the serial number.

Cycles Peugeot in France did all of the above at various times in its history.

What are date codes?

In the 1970s and 1980s the various bicycle manufactures around the world each may have employed their own date code schemes. There was no standard for date coding. The codes used numbers only, or alphabetic characters only, or a mix of number and alphabetic characters. Usually there was a code for the year of manufacture and another code for a time period within that year. Sometimes there was also a code for the manufacturer included with the date code.

When Cycles Peugeot began using date codes, usually there was a manufacturer code, and the date codes were year and month. There was a small period where one of their codes was month and year.

Cycles Peugeot manufactured most of its frames at a factory in Beaulieu France up to its closing in 1988. This factory was in eastern France near the border with Switzerland.

Cycles Peugeot purchased a factory in Romilly-sur-Seine in 1972, a ways southeast of Paris. It had been a refrigerator factory and had to be converted. I do not know how long the conversion took. I do not know when the first bicycle frames were produced at this factory, but it may not have been until 1974.

Up to and into the early 1970s Peugeot stamped serial numbers into various places on the frames they produced. In about 1972 some Peugeot frames had an aluminum label or plate riveted to the bottom bracket with a serial number. There do not appear to have been any date code information.

Cycles Peugeot bicycles produced at the Romilly factory in 1974 are first place where I have seen date codes employ by Peugeot.