You can actually look at IWC watches serial numbers and compare them with a serial number list in order to date its approximate production year. So what is the case with IWC watches and their serial numbers? Other manufacturers do not disclose any information at all, which means the information that is available is crowdsourced. Some brands share ”extract from the archives” if you provide them with your watch’s serial number, and then give you detailed information about your watch. Most commonly, the watch manufacturer has records of its serial numbers that are not officially open to the public. But it also helps with tracking stolen or lost watches, as each serial number is unique. This is both helpful when you want to see when a watch was made, and get more information about it. The primary purpose is to give the manufacturer full control over each and every single watch that leaves the factory and to be able to identify each and every single watch. The serial number of a watch has several purposes.

Most premium watch manufacturers engrave their watches with serial numbers.

Heuer bundeswehr serial numbers