Valve dates

[lifeincolorado]

Is there anyway of knowing what year a valve was made?

[Nobody]

Yes and no. A first good start is stating what kind of valve and what the serial number is.

[bowcycle]

If I remember my research correctly, about 500 valves were made the first 2 years of production, then it jumped into the thousands from the 3rd year on, and they were into the ten thousands by mid-late 90's on the cf (Automag68, Classic, and AIR valves - all marked cfXXXXX).
This gets a little complicated as some early valves were re-lazered with higher numbers as they were sent in for the upgrades.
So if your valve still has a "cf00500" or lower, you're almost guaranteed very early production. Anything past that and it's not really anything special and probably came to life as a lvl7.

Also note that the first production valves of each type were marked "00100" so if you have a valve marked 00102, it isn't the 102nd valve, but the 2nd production valve.

[lifeincolorado]

I actually never assumed it was special in any way. It's a classic valve with lvl7 serial on the 49000 range. I'm curious of the year because it shoots amazingly well and most can't believe it ls 20ish years old. I was hoping to put an more exact age to it. Makes those who've never shot a mag stop and think a minute.

[bowcycle]

It's a classic valve with lvl7 serial on the 49000 range...Makes those who've never shot a mag stop and think a minute.

That one could be in the early 2000's, but it's still probably 15 years old.
Yup, it doesn't have to be "special" or "new" to do it's job really well. Part of the reason why AGD over-engineered itself into a limited market. If they never break and perform great, you never need to buy new.