How to date Hermès (the blind stamp)
What year is my Hermès blind stamp — and does the letter prove the bag is real?
The most legible dating layer in this canon, and the Maison has never published it. Bare letters 1945–1970, circled 1971–1996, squared 1997–2014, then bare and NON-SEQUENTIAL from 2015 — the full year-by-year table, counted, with its reported exceptions. Read it as a community dating aid, never as proof: a stamp can be replicated, and Hermès states it cannot authenticate anything bought outside its own channels.
The tells — 12, sourced
- 01
STATUS FIRST, because everything else depends on it: Hermès publishes NO official blind-stamp table and its own FAQ states the house cannot guarantee or verify authenticity for items bought outside its authorised channels. The table below is a cross-checked SPECIALIST-RESELLER guide (Xupes and JaneFinds agree on the sequence and the modern codes). It is a dating aid. It is not an authentication rule, and a blind stamp can be replicated.
- 02
THE SHAPE CARRIES THE BAND, and this is the tell most people miss: bare letters = 1945–1970, CIRCLED letters = 1971–1996, SQUARED letters = 1997–2014, bare again = 2015 onward. Bands one and two run the identical A–Z sequence, so the shape is the ONLY thing separating them — a bare L is 1956, a circled L is 1982.
- 03
BARE-LETTER AMBIGUITY (follows directly from the table, and it traps people): because 2015+ returned to bare letters, a bare stamp is ambiguous between 1945–1970 and 2015–present. A bare T is 1964 OR 2015; a bare A is 1945 OR 2017. Nothing in the stamp resolves it — the model, material, hardware and construction do. Never date a bare letter from the letter alone.
- 04
BARE LETTERS, 1945–1970 (26 years, 26 letters): 1945 A · 1946 B · 1947 C · 1948 D · 1949 E · 1950 F · 1951 G · 1952 H · 1953 I · 1954 J · 1955 K · 1956 L · 1957 M · 1958 N · 1959 O · 1960 P · 1961 Q · 1962 R · 1963 S · 1964 T · 1965 U · 1966 V · 1967 W · 1968 X · 1969 Y · 1970 Z.
- 05
CIRCLED LETTERS, 1971–1996 (26 years, 26 letters): 1971 A · 1972 B · 1973 C · 1974 D · 1975 E · 1976 F · 1977 G · 1978 H · 1979 I · 1980 J · 1981 K · 1982 L · 1983 M · 1984 N · 1985 O · 1986 P · 1987 Q · 1988 R · 1989 S · 1990 T · 1991 U · 1992 V · 1993 W · 1994 X · 1995 Y · 1996 Z.
- 06
SQUARED LETTERS, 1997–2014 (18 years, A through R): 1997 A · 1998 B · 1999 C · 2000 D · 2001 E · 2002 F · 2003 G · 2004 H · 2005 I · 2006 J · 2007 K · 2008 L · 2009 M · 2010 N · 2011 O · 2012 P · 2013 Q · 2014 R.
- 07
BARE AND NON-SEQUENTIAL, 2015–2026 (12 years — this band cannot be counted out, only looked up): 2015 T · 2016 X · 2017 A · 2018 C · 2019 D · 2020 Y · 2021 Z · 2022 U · 2023 B · 2024 W · 2025 K · 2026 G. The 2026 entry is a current specialist-guide record, not Maison-confirmed.
- 08
REPORTED EXCEPTIONS: a late-2014 bare R is documented as a transition variant, and a rectangular JO mark appears on some casual-line Evelyne and Double Sens examples. Treat a non-conforming stamp as a question to investigate, not an automatic verdict either way.
- 09
Creative-director scope, because sellers routinely inflate it: Martin Margiela directed WOMENSWEAR 1997–2003 (see our Margiela dossier — twelve collections, and the MoMu 2017 retrospective is what rehabilitated them), Jean Paul Gaultier 2003–2010, Christophe Lemaire 2010–2014 (final collection SS2015), Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski from 2014 (debut Fall 2015). Véronique Nichanian ran MENSWEAR separately from 1988 to her final show on 24 January 2026; Grace Wales Bonner succeeds her. None of them was a house-wide creative director.
- 10
Market boundaries — three different categories that buyers get hurt confusing: (a) AUCTION RECORD: Jane Birkin's own original prototype made €8,582,500 including fees at Sotheby's Paris on 10 July 2025 (~US$10.1M) — the most valuable handbag ever auctioned, and a provenance-specific result, NOT a Birkin price guide. The prior record was a Diamond Himalaya Kelly 28 at $513,040 (2021). (b) PLATFORM STUDY: 'Birkins outperformed the S&P 500, 1980–2015' is a SINGLE 2016 resale-platform study built on that platform's own receipts — evidence of how resale culture frames the bag, not an audited index. (c) INVESTMENT ADVICE: not offered here, ever.
- 11
Kelly naming stays DISPUTED: Hermès's own chronology says the bag was named Kelly in 1956 after a photograph of Grace Kelly circulated; the widely repeated 1977 'formal renaming' is a lower-quality reseller claim and does not displace the primary record. The Birkin origin is the house's own 1984 dating of the Dumas–Birkin encounter; retellings conflict on the flight's direction, so use the house wording.
- 12
The March 2024 Birkin-allocation antitrust suit is ALLEGATIONS and procedural history — never repeat it as a proven finding that the allocation practice is unlawful. The 2025 'Wirkin' phenomenon is a secondary cultural lead, not confirmed enforcement or commercial impact.
Two sources or it ships as rumor. Where a tell is collector-lore rather than a museum fact, the tell says so — weight it with construction and provenance, never alone.
The full dossiers
Holding one right now?
Drop the listing into the Scout — it runs this exact protocol against the label, the tags, and the seller's story, and hands you the verdict with the receipts.
Scout a pieceThe Dispatch
One letter when the canon deepens. No noise.