Age Determination

The age is best determined from the internal components. While this organ has a label inside with a date on it, everything else suggests this is wrong.

Speakers

These have 6 digit codes. The 575 is the manufacturer code (Heppner) and the other digits are the year (5) and the week number.

575546 Heppner, 19_5, week 46

575544 Heppner, 19_5, week 44

575546 Heppner, 19_5, week 46

Although no decade is specified, it must be the 1960's as the M100s were all made in that decade. The speakers therefore date from November 1965.

Capacitors

Two of these have the same code, 6516. Likely to be week 16 of 1965, which is April.

The other one is 24065. 65 again probably 1965, and the 240 could be the manufacturer Micomold.

Transformers

This organ has 2 amps, therefore 4 transformers. As with the speakers, the codes contain the manufacturer, year and week.

606526 Woodward-Schumacher, week 26, 19_5 (Black, main amp)

524 65 41 Triwec Transformer, week 41, 1965 (Silver, main amp)

606524 Woodward-Schumacher, week 24, 19_5 (Black, reverb amp)

524 65 33 Triwec Transformer, week 33, 1965 (Silver, reverb amp)

These weeks are in June / August / October 1965.

Valves

Or 'tubes' for USA types. The codes have worn off most of these, but the readable ones are 65-30, 65-35 and 65-44. Dates therefore are July / August / November 1965.

Paper Label

The date as written is 7/1/65. However this must be wrong, it can't be 1965.

7 Jan 1965 - No. This was before all of the components were made.

1 Jul 1965 - No. Still well before most of the components were made

7 Jan 1966 - Possible. Perhaps the person wrote 65 in error as only just into 1966?

1 Jul 1966 - Unlikely, as no components are dated 1966, and who makes an error with the year after writing it for over 6 months?

The Spring Reverb unit has 1122-6547. Unknown what the 1122 is for, but seems likely that 6547 is week 47 of 1965. This would be November 1965.

From this information, the likely assembly date of the organ is December 1965, assuming the speakers were the latest components fitted. The label is probably January 1966, with the person writing 1965 in error, as this was only a few days into the new year.

Probably finally tested in early January 1966 when shipped.