Olympus OM-2 production dates by serial number

[matej_vatovec]

Does anyone know in which period would fall an Olympus OM2 with the

serial number 463872?

[konrad_beck1]

I guess mid to late of 1978. Does it have the "new" (white dots scattered more or less homogenously all over the curtain) or "old" (white spot number increased along the horizantal direction) shutter curtain? The switch occured around mid 1978. I thing you should have the newer curtain. OM-2N production started spring 1979 with S/N > 500,000 (there are OM-2 w/o the "N" up to around S/N 630,000).

[konrad_beck1]

Here are pictures of the different shutter curtains:

 

http://brashear.phys.appstate.edu/lhawkins/

 

S/N 461812 has the newer curtain; thus my guess that 463872 has been assembled in the second half of 1978.

 

You might want to look whether there is a 4-character code printed behind the film pressure plate: 1st character (japanese) = assembly plant; 2nd character = last digit of manufacturing year (should be 8 for 1978 in your case); 3rd character = month (1 to 9, Jan to Sept, X=Oct, Y=Nov, Z=Dec); 4th character = type of pressure plate. All this assumes that the camera back hasn't been changed.

[matej_vatovec]

Thank you Konrad, i checked the curtain pattern shortly after i made the post and found out it's the newer one, so late 1978.

I currently don't want to take to pieces the pressure plate, so i will wait some more for the exact date of production. Thank you once again.